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THE 



MINOK WORKS 



OF 



GEORGE GROTE. 



LONDON : 

PRINTED BY WILLTA3I CLOWES AND SONS, 
STAMFOUD STREET AXD CHARINO CROSS. 










jL^.^neu'.'z ^s/:y?i,^u?v"izy^lds7>' 



■^i.I&p. 



THE 



MINOR WORKS 



OF 



GEORGE GROTE. 



>\ 



WITH 



CRITICAL REMARKS ON HIS INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER, 

WRITINGS, AND SPEECHES, 



By ALEXANDER BAIN. 



^ 



1876, 






Wash 



LONDON: 

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 

1873. 

The right of Translation is reserved. 




NOTICE TO BINDER. 

K>« 

Frontispiece, juvenile Portrait of Mr. Grote, from a miniature painted from life by Ross, at 

Badgemore, Oxon. 



PREFACE, 



In the present volume are brought together the most 
important of Mr. Grote's minor writings. The sub- 
jects are very varied ; in all of them the composition 
is highly wrought ; and the scholarly and philoso- 
phical essays are for the most part treated in a 
popular manner. 

The earliest work of the author given at full is the 
' Essentials of Parliamentary Reform.' It came out 
at the commencement of his public and parliamentary 
career, and sets forth in a systematic shape his theory 
of Representative Grovernment. Since the date of 
its publication this country has passed through forty 
years of unexampled political excitement and dis- 
cussion ; nevertheless, from the thoroughness of the 
author's grasp of political principles, the freshness 
and vigour of his illustration, and, not least, the high 
moral tone pervading the whole, the work is neither 
antiquated nor commonplace. In particular, his 
mode of supporting the doctrine that makes property 
the basis of the franchise, so far from being hackneyed 
by repetition, has lain unused on occasions when it 
might have been employed with effect. 

The short paper on Hobbes is a notice of the first 



VI PREFACE. 

• 

and second volumes of Sir William Molesworth's 
luxiirions and complete edition of Hobbes's writings. 
An interesting account of the circumstances that led 
Molesworth to undertake the edition, at a consider- 
able outlay, is given by Mrs. Grote ('Life,' p. 128). 
The notice is exceedingly characteristic of its author, 
and reproduces some of his most deep-seated con- 
victions, and most frequent topics of conversation. 
The article on Grecian Legends, published in 

1843, was preparatory to the first part of the 
'History of Greece,' which deals with Legendary 
Greece ; going over the ground of the sixteenth 
and seventeenth chapters of the work. It is not 
bereft of its interest by the more expanded handling 
in those chapters. One of the examples given of a 
myth created in our own times, has been reckoned 
a felicitous contribution to the author's general 
theory. 

The article on Boeckh's ' Metrology,' published in 

1844, in the Classical Miisewn^ is a careful and 
elaborate estimate of the evidence remaining to us 
respecting Ancient Measures, Weights, and Money. 
The interest of the discussion is not confined to 
the scholar. By means of the usages relative to the 
standards of measure, weight, and money coinage, 
the general reader will obtain glimpses of ancient 
life, while ample proofs are afibrded of the Eastern 
origin of this part of Greek and Eoman civilisation. 

The ' Presidential Address to the City of London 
Scientific Institution ' and the ' Address on deliver- 



PEEFACE. Vll 

ing the prizes at University College/ are deliberately 
composed, and express the speaker's sentiments as to 
the aims of young men preparing themselves for the 
work of life. The pursuit of knowledge, both as a 
means, and for its own sake^ is strongly put forward 
in combination with a high ideal of self-reliance and 
patriotic citizenship. 

The Review of Sir Greorge Lewis's work, on the 
• Credibility of Early Roman History,' is both an 
interesting summary of the work, and a close criti- 
cism of its positions. Concurring with the author 
in his standard of historical evidence, and in his re- 
probation of the long-prevalent looseness of historical 
statements, Mr. Grrote points out instances where he 
thinks Lewis's scepticism is carried too far. The 
reader will be gratified to see the agreements and 
the differences of these two great authorities, as to 
the historical value of the earliest Roman records. 

The article (originally published as a pamphlet) 
on Plato's Doctrine respecting the Rotation of the 
Earth, is throughout polemical, and on that ground 
alone shows the author to advantage. The point in 
dispute is — Whether Plato- maintained the Rotation 
of the Earth about its axis, in opposition to the then 
received view of its being stationary. To have anti- 
cipated the greatest of astronomical discoveries would 
have been immensely to his honour. The question 
apparently involves the meaning of a Greek word ; 
but it really turns upon a very different considera- 
tion, namely, whether Plato could hold two doctrines 



viii PREFACE. 

inconsistent with each other — the revolution of the 
starry sphere and the revokition of the earth. Plato, 
in a fanciful manner of his own, maintained both 
doctrines, and did not feel the inconsistency; and, 
Mr. Grote, so far from being shocked or astonished 
at the circumstance as his opponents appear to 
be, characteristically regards it as a very frequent 
situation of the human mind. The discussion brings 
out some curious specimens of ancient modes of 
thinking. 

The ' Review of John Stuart Mill's Examination of 
Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy ' is a studied pro- 
duction, and takes a wide scope. It is prefaced by 
a warm eulogium on the elder Mill, which has a 
permanent biographical value. Before entering upon 
the Examination of Hamilton, Mr. Grote surveys the 
other works of its author — the ' Logic,' the ' Political 
Economy,' and the 'Liberty'; and avows his own 
obligations more particularly to the ' Logic' The 
review of the work on Hamilton lucidly discusses the 
chief topic in debate, and is distinguished among other 
points for pronouncing a more favourable opinion 
upon Hamilton on the whole than that expressed by 
Mill as the result of his critical examination. 

The Papers on Philosophy are printed from the 
author's MSS. The principal topic handled in them 
is the great question of Metaphysics — the Perception 
of the External World, on which Mr. Grote had long 
and intently meditated, but without having published 
his conclusions. There is also a criticism written 



PREFACE. IX 

shortly before his death on some parts of M. Taine's 
work, ' De 1' Intelligence/ chiefly with reference to 
another favourite subject — the primary truths of 
science. 

The Introduction contains abstracts of the Essay 
on Mackintosh, the Eeview of ' Mitford's Greece,' 
and the Speeches in Parliament — the six Ballot 
Speeches being given by themselves — followed by 
a critical survey of the ' History of Grreece,' the 
'Plato,' and the 'Aristotle'; and ends with a notice 
of Mr. Grote's later public career, particularly in 
his connection with the University of London. 

A. B. 

London, October, 1873. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Jl REFACK .• .. •• .. ., .. 

CRITICAL ESTIMATE OF CHARACTER AND 

WRITINGS. 

Chap. I. Writings from 1820 to 1830 
II. Speeches ox the Ballot 

III. Miscellaneous Speeches 

IV. History of Greece 
V. Work on Plato 

YI. Work on Aristotle 
YII. Later Public Life . . 



PAGE 
V 



[1] 

[19j 

[38] 

[66] 

[104] 

[120] 

[159] 



ESSENTIALS OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM .. .. 1 

NOTICE OF SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH'S EDITION OF 

THE WORKS OF HOBBES 57 

GRECIAN LEGENDS AND EARLY HISTORY .. .. 73 

REVIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, COINS, 

AND MEASURES 135 

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, IN COMMEMORATION OF 
THE TWENTY - FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
LONDON SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION 175 

ADDRESS ON DELIVERING THE PRIZES AT UNIVER- 
SITY COLLEGE 195 

REVIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS ON THE CREDIBILITY 

OF EARLY ROMAN HISTORY 205 



xii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

PLATO'S DOCTRINE EESPECTING THE ROTATION OF 
THE EARTH, AND ARISTOTLE'S COMMENT UPON 
THAT DOCTRINE 237 

REVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL ON THE PHILOSOPHY 

OF SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON 277 

PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY 331 



THE 



INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 



OP 



GEOBGE GEOTE. 



-K>^ 



CHAPTEE I. 

WRITINGS FROM 1820 TO 1830. 

Mr. Grote's literary career may be said to have commenced 
with a pamphlet on Parliamentary Eeform, which, as has 
been atated in his biography, he composed by the bedside of 
his wife, in 1821. This first essay in the field of political 
science was prompted by an impatience of the plausible 
fallacies put forth by a writer in the ' Edinburgh Eeview/ 
No. LXI., in an article afterwards ascribed on good groimds 
to Sir James Mackintosh. 

In that article, Mackintosh is strongly in favour of Eeform, 
and throughout displays much liberality of tone. He is, 
however, especially averse to Universal Suffrage and to the 
Ballot ; and propounds a scheme for representing classes 
equally, altliough the numbers composing the classes might 
be very unequal. 

Grote's reply is scathing. We detect in his theory of 
politics, now for the first time promulgated, strong marks 
of Mill's famous article on Government ; we see also that he 
had already matured his conviction as to the ballot. There 
is, moreover, in the article, a highly sustained Ehetoiic, 

h 



[2] CHAEACTER AND WRITINGS. 

which may well have been nourished by Burke's Speeches, 
but was probably his own ideal of effective composition, the 
result of continued intimacy with the best literary pro- 
ductions ancient and modern. His subsequent style plainly 
shows that he considered this first attempt as too figurative. 
In the ballot speeches his style was much less rhetorical, 
and more effective. The present pamphlet also contains 
many sentences obscurely worded ; while his later style was 
remarkably clear. 

At the outset of the pamphlet, he regards the ^ Edinburgh 
Review ' as evincing a rooted hostility to any effective Par- 
liamentary Reform, and accounts for this by its connexion 
with the great aristocratical Whig party. Section I. is 
entitled ' General Principles of the Reformers.' It begins 
by applying to political science Bacon's exposure of the low 
condition of the sciences generally, the test being their fruits 
or practical workings. Bacon's remedy, namely, to sift and 
verify fundamental principles, if applied to political philo- 
sophy, would consist in enquiring what experience teaches 
concerning the laws of human action. Now, the amplest 
observation attests that the conduct of every individual 
will be determined by his interest. This is true not merely 
of individual, but also of conjoined action. If a hundred 
individuals possess the privilege of passing and executing 
the laws for a large country, they will to a certainty appro- 
priate the wealth and services of the inhabitants just as far 
as they are permitted. A governing company, therefore, 
must be constructed on such a scale that the majority of its 
members shall profit as little as possible by misgovernment. 
For that end, there are two requisites : First, the numbers 
must be considerable, so that the share of each individual 
may be low. Secondly, the relative situation of the members 
must be so arranged, that if they combine for sinister pur- 
poses, the benefits of misrule may be distributed equally. 
The first precaution would be nugatory without the second ; 
had there been a slave suffrage at Athens, the masters would 
still have been the sole gainers ; the slaves would have had 



WRITINGS FROM 1820 TO 1830. [3] 

« 

no share. Again, as any large number is unfit for the exer- 
cise of deliberative power, the ruling company must be 
divided into two classes — periodical electors, and elected 
legislators ; an enlarged numerical qualification can belong 
only to electors. But this enlargement is nugatory, unless 
the suffrage of each person is emancipated from control : which 
is possible only by a system of secret delivery. Moreover, 
as a Legislative share in the privileges of government is 
more valuable than an Elective share, this difference must be 
reduced hj frequency of election. 

How do these principles apply to the British Constitution ? 
If the slightest credit is due to the incessant and flaming 
proclamations of the Whigs, the majority of the ruling com- 
pany, as at present constituted, draw a decided benefit from 
misgovernment. In 1793, Earl Grey presented to Parlia- 
ment a petition in which it was asserted, and evidence ten- 
dered in proof, that a majority of the Commons was returned 
by seventy-one peers and ninety-one commoners. This is 
a sufficient explanation of the abuses denounced by the 
Whigs. What is the remedy ? The advocates of Eeform, 
in demanding an extended number of electors, do not urge 
the absolute necessity of making the suffrage universal : 
they do, however, maintain secret suffrage to be a vital 
requisite. 

Section 11. is ' Modes of Attack employed by the Enemies 
of Parliamentary Reform.' The just mode of attack is to pro- 
pose alternative means for attaining the end. One means 
proposed is the scheme of a disinterested ministry, in other 
words, a Whig ministry. 

The Whigs, it is pretended, will reject tlie benefits of 
misgovernment, and be content with their share, in common 
with the rest of the people, of a cheap system. But now, he 
asks, Upon what do these splendid pretensions rest ? On 
nothing but the speeches and promises of the Whigs them- 
selves. The track of lofty and flattering promise has long 
been known as conducting to power, and many are the knaves 
that walk therein. Yet farther, wlien we liear that there 

h 2 



[4] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

are citizens who may be securely entrusted with the licence 
of inflicting evil, of course, for such persons, crime can have 
no attractions, and laws are needless and inoperative. Does 
then our penal code except the Whigs from its sanctions ? 
Not only so, but such men ought to be above the ordinary 
self-interested motives of payment for services. Do then 
the salaries of the Administration of 1806 remain untouched 
in the Exchequer ? If not, this alone places them on the 
level of ordinary life. It is not meant by such remarks to 
make any special censure upon the Whigs. But were they 
to claim an immunity from all penal laws whatsoever, the 
boon w^ould be trifling as compared with the pretensions to 
power. If there were no law to deter them from crime, 
voluntary associations would arise and probably restrain their 
licence ; while no exemption from private law could lay at 
their feet a spoil so secure and alluring, and, at the same 
time, so compatible with an untarnished fame as the posts 
that they aspire to. 

The next mode of argument for evading Keform is to set 
up the check of public opinion. Conceding, in the first 
instance, that public opinion is successful in defeating 
extravagance on the part of the administration, would it 
give a decided interest in good government ? It is at best a 
check, and not a spur. However efficacious pronounced 
opinion might be in keeping off new taxes, it would inspire 
no zeal for reduction of present burdens. The motive is 
a powerful one, but will it never be misled or disunited by 
official pretence or stratagem ? A government can easily 
alarm people into unnecessary wars, and so provide for a 
useless squad of dependents. The popular sentiment would 
probably become highly distempered by the poisonous 
matter that an interested body could infuse. The con- 
cession, however, now made in favour of the influence of 
public opinion is too much. The machinery of the social 
system, in the construction of laws, attests the impotence of 
the bridle of opinion. Unless the penal code can be turned 
into a useless scroll, it follows that from no one crime are 



WETTINGS FBOM 1820 TO 1830. [5] 

we sufficiently guaranteed by the avenging murmurs and by 
the uplifted arm of the public. Far less would public 
opinion maintain a vigilant censorship on an evil-intentioned 
government. As a preventive of private enormities — a rape 
or a murder — public opinion acts with the greatest advan- 
tage: no corrupt associations distort our sentiments, no 
expectations of profit from connivance can dull the horror 
of the act ; the sympathy is kindled by the concentration of 
the suffering ; the act itself is distinct and conspicuous ; the 
character of the deed is flagrant ; the criminal is a marked 
man ; and, finally, public opinion has an ally in the injured 
party or those connected with him. Now, mark the deduc- 
tions to be made from all these counts, when the same check 
is intended to subdue the sinister interest of a government. 
Experience attests our indulgence and even admiration of 
robbery and murder when on a grand scale ; our feelings are 
averted from the injustice and desolation of a war to par- 
take in the triumph of the general, and extol the terrific 
power that has done the work. The majesty of power that 
veils from our eyes its flagrant enormities completely white- 
washes the more insignificant minutiae of oppression ; not 
to speak of the hopes of place and profit to individuals. The 
extortion of a politic government, may impose but a trifling 
privation on each member of the community ; the evil may 
be enormous in the sum, but it appeals rather to cool reflec- 
tion than to our excited sensibilities. Again, the acts are of 
a kind very difficult to detect > how can public opinion keep 
steadily in view the nice boundary between necessary and 
unnecessary taxation ? Farther, the body to be acted on is 
numerous, and forms the most opulent, powerful and best 
instructed class in the community. Their mutual interest 
creates a train of peculiar feeling, and a perverted standard 
of conduct, rendering them insensible to reproach, at least 
until it swells to the loudest pitch. Mere languid dis- 
approbation is insufficient ; the feeling must be kindled 
into animosity and menace, and England stimulated into a 



[6] OHAEACTER AND WRITINGS. 

clamorous eJBferyescence, from the Thames to the Tay. 
During this time, the partisans of the government intersect 
the popular sentiment in all directions ; perplex and disturb 
its unison, counterwork its ejffect on the timid and the in- 
different, by impeaching the designs of its adversaries, and 
by setting up, on their own side, a still louder cry of impiety 
and rebellion. If reduced to yield, they find means by 
adroit concessions to retain part of their ground : and as 
opinion cannot long keep its lofty pitch, if the government 
can hold on for a limited period, the threats of the public 
will quickly subside. Even, if the public opinion should 
thwart any pernicious measures, it inflicts no punishment, 
and impresses no motive for the future. Again, as abuses 
seldom press signally on one individual, or on a small knot 
of persons, they do not draw forth a leader ; so that public 
opinion is left to organise itself in desultory detachments. 
To all which we must add, that as laws are made because an 
injured person would inflict excessive punishment on his 
enemy, an incensed people triumphing in a successful insur- 
rection cannot be expected to impose a stricter rein on their 
resentment. The impotence of the check is proved by the 
amplest testimony, seeing that it is the one check that 
springs up everywhere. Yet when we unrol the great mass 
of mankind, how striking and* irresistible are the proofs of 
its incompetency ! That it is an insufficient check upon 
the present governing class in England, we are informed by 
the most satisfactory evidence. The Whig members of Par- 
liament expatiate upon the defiance of the popular senti- 
ments by the Ministry ; and the Ministers, while confessing 
that the many are against them, declare that the sound, the 
rational part of the community, those alone hnown to the 
Constitution are in their favour. Others maintain that the 
people are too ignorant to detect misgovernment. The 
remedy is — let them see only the good ; present to men of 
ability no hope of reward from misrule. 

The author now considers the Reviewer's plan for a 



WRITINGS FROM 1820 TO 1830. [7] 

Representation of Classes. The proposal is to examine the 
variety of local and professional interests composing the 
general interest, and to give to each of these suitable repre- 
sentatives. In order to consider the effect of this plan, the 
author takes a simple case : let a community consist of three 
classes — lawyers, landholders, merchants — each returning a 
member to make a governing body. What will be the 
course of this triumvirate ? Each deputy is devoted to his 
class, but he can do nothing singly ; but if he combine with 
another, the concurrence of the third is of no importance, 
and his interest is disregarded. That equal protection to 
all classes, which the theory supposes, is in practice unattain- 
able. The interests of no class can be protected unless they 
can return a majority of the governing body. All that one 
class can do is to combine with other classes, merging what 
interest it has in opposition to these, and standing up only 
for what the united classes have 4n common; and if a 
majority is formed, that common interest will be secured. 
The ancient Eoman class-system was in the Eeviewer's 
model ; and the two wealthiest of the six classes were able 
to outvote all the rest, while these included an overwhelming 
majority of the people. 

The second half of the pamphlet takes account of the 
Eeviewer's Objections to a thorough Parliamentary Eeform. 
And first, his objections to Universal Suffrage. The 
Eeviewer supposes Ireland to be an independent state, with 
four-fifths of the population Catholics, and a government 
elected by universal suffrage ; where, in that case, would the 
Protestants be ? The author retorts, where would they be 
on the class system ? As the whole island is composed of 
Protestants and Catholics, under every possible system one 
or other sect must have the majority, and must dominate the 
other. The Eeviewer seems fully aware that universal 
suffrage would entail a neglect of the interests of the few ; 
he omits to remark that the return of a majority by the few 
would produce the same inattention to the interests of the 
many. When the rivalry in the state is merely as to the 



[8] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

possession of good things, there will be a partial renunciation 
of interest, so as to appease the discordance ; but an un- 
conquerable antipathy like that between Protestants and 
Catholics, blacks and whites, is irremediable. 

In the case between the many and the few, it may be 
undeniably proved that a majority chosen by the many will 
pursue the interest that the many have in common with 
the few. This position the author explains at length. The 
most interesting and original part of the argument is where 
he deals with the common allegation that the many would 
not respect projyerty. He points out the insidious attempt 
to restrict this word to the large proprietors. Strictly 
speaking, the poorest labourer has property, for which 
he needs the full protection of the law ; and the laws for 
protecting large properties must equally protect the small. 
Mr. Grote, as we shall see, on subsequent occasions reverts 
to this fallacy. (See on this point, p. 53 et seq,) 

A considerable portion of the pamphlet is occupied with 
the Reviewer's attack on the Ballot. The line of attack is 
rather strange. The Eeviewer thinks it a fallacy that the 
value of popular elections depends on the exercise of a 
deliberate judgment by the electors ; the real value is in 
diffusing public spirit. The author deals with this in his 
most vigorous style, shewing that it essentially consists in 
assigning to the general public the very worst part that they 
can play — the part of mobs. It is the result of the existing 
state of things, that the bulk of the community have inter- 
fered in national affairs by a display of physical force ; and 
reasoners have thereby been led to consider collective 
agency as an essential requisite of their political life. But 
the display of physical force should no more enter into 
politics than into mutual protection against lawlessness. 
The Eeviewer still farther urges the loss of excitement and 
heat through secret voting, — the Kfelessness and want of 
motive to go to the poll ; the virtues of the community do 
not arise from secret meditation, and do not flourish in 
solitude. The replies are sufficiently telling ; and although 



WRITINGS FROM 1820 TO 1830. [9] 

the author's illustration, every time he touches this question 
is fresh and racy, I shall defer the specimens of his handling 
until I come to the speeches in Parliament. 

The vigour of the pamphlet furnished a new weapon to the 
friends of Eeform. The 'Examiner' styled it "a very able 
and a very seasonable pamphlet/' and regarded the defence of 
the Ballot as the most comprehensive and useful part of the 
work ; adding that " Eeformers have paid too little attention 
to this excellent plan for curbing the sinister and immoral 
exercise of bribery and intimidation on the part of the 
great." 

We may see that Mr. Grote's studies in politics, theoretical 
and practical, were now well advanced. He had thoroughly 
imbibed the method and views of James Mill, which he 
developed by resources peculiar to himself. 



On the 25th of April, 1822, Lord John Eussell moved in 
the House of Commons, " That the present state of the repre- 
sentation of the people in Parliament requires the most 
serious consideration of this House." A long debate ensued, 
in which Mr. Canning delivered an elaborate oration. The 
motion was rejected by 269 to 164. 

Mr. Canning s speech drew out from Mr. Grote a letter 
published in the ^ Morning Chronicle,' full of his usual argu- 
mentative power and vigour of language. We need not 
reproduce it in full, but one or two extracts will be useful in 
showing the author's intensity of feeling on Eeform. The 
introduction is to this effect : — 

" That Mr. Canning's eloquence should prove triumphant 
in an assembly, so large a portion of which is ' self-elected ' 
(to use the unanswered and unanswerable phrase of Lord 
John Eussell), can excite no surprise whatever. His task is 
indeed an easy one on the floor of St. Stephen's. Would he 
but condescend to essay his powers on the other side of the 



[10] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

question, Avould he persuade gentlemen to surrender close, 
privileged, and hereditary seats, accompanied with a lucrative 
expenditure of 22,000,000?. per annum, and as much or as 
little to do as they please ; and to descend into the character 
of industrious, economical, and responsible legislators — this 
indeed would be an aim worthy of the rhetorician. And I 
much question whether even Mr. Canning's eloquence, if 
exerted on this side, would produce quite so many cheers, 
and such frequent laughter, as it seems to do at present. 

" To appreciate duly the extent of this gentleman's oratory, 
let us remove it from the circle of sympathising and con- 
fidential critics among whom it was delivered, and measure 
its effect upon the larger public without. \Yill his speech 
impel their minds in the proportion of 269 to 164, as it has 
already won the House of Commons? Let us review its 
contents briefly, with reference to that public for whose 
benefit the debate is imagined to have taken place." 

The essence of the speech, he states, as consisting of 
three arguments. The first is " Reformers do not agree in 
their proposals : Ergo, there ought to be no reform." The 
second is ^^ A Reform in the Parliament would depress and 
extinguish the Crown." The writer remarks — 

" This is an unqualified avowal, that monarchical govern- 
ment is highly injurious to the people. For such a decla- 
ration, I or any one else, anybody except Mr. Canning or 
Mr. F. Robinson, would be prosecuted. ' Any Legislature,' 
says the former, ' really elected by the people, responsible to 
them, and therefore promoting solely and exclusively the 
public good, would abrogate the Royal Prerogative. The 
latter, therefore, is irreconcileably at variance with the public 
happiness and interests.' Such is the view entertained by 
Mr. Canning, and by the Parliament who second Mr. Can- 
ning, of the genuine value of Monarchical Government. A 
more severe condemnation of the Throne cannot be pro- 
nounced, than this assertion, that an assembly aiming at the 
public happiness would never retain it." 

" Next comes an argument cogent indeed, but not easily 



WRITINGS FROM 1820 TO 1830. [11] 

referable to any known rules of logic : — 'The present con- 
stitution is the one under which Mr. Canning was born, and 
which therefore ought on no account to be changed.' When 
an infant of celebrity is born, we are commonly flattered 
with the hopes of some striking improvement which he is to 
accomplish — a reproduction of the golden age or of the 
Saturnian system of government. But Mr. Canning's god- 
fathers and godmother appear to have vowed in his name, 
that the world should be bound fast exactly in the position 
which it held when that gentleman first saw the light." 

Canning's fourth argument — " that it is not a good thing 
that the House of Commons should be so constituted as to 
coincide with the sentiments of the people " — is dealt with 
as we should expect. The concluding paragraph is — 

" Having thus anatomised the chief part of Mr. Canning's 
speech, I may venture to predict that it will not divide the 
nation in the proportion of 269 to 164. But this will be only 
a fresh demonstration of that general incapacity of the 
British race, which Mr. Canning so pointedly notices — from the 
melancholy effects of which we are providentially extricated 
by possessing a Legislature wise by blood and by inheritance." 



Among some essays, preserved in MSS. of the date 1822, 
there is a short paper wherein Mr. Crete refutes the alleged 
hostility of the bulk of the people to property, as inferred 
from occasional popular injustices. He meets the charge by 
several arguments. In the first place, he remarks, while so 
much stress is laid on the individual rich man whom the 
people have despoiled, no notice is taken of the many rich 
whom they have left untouched. Secondly, in order to 
predict the behaviour of any man or body of men, we must 
consider what their permanent interest points to. Thirdly, 
if it were admitted "that because the people have com- 
mitted occasional violations of property, therefore the people 
are hostile to property," the same might be equally aflSrmed 
of every other form of government. We ought to compute 



[12] CHARACTER AND WHITINGS. 

the instances of spoliation, under governments responsible 
to the people, and those under governments of one, or a 
few, in order to decide the question with perfect accuracy. 
But as this proceeding is impracticable, there remains one 
other method, namely, to apply the maxim " that every man 
will pursue his own interest," under which it will appear 
that the bulk of the people have a most essential interest 
in strengthening the motives to the accumulation of capital, 
because upon that depends the demand for labour. It is 
the very poorest that have the strongest interest in pro- 
moting accumulation. On the other hand, a monarch or 
an aristocracy, or both allied, have an interest directly at 
variance with the public hai3piness. They have an interest 
in plundering and degrading the community to the deepest 
extent, and in forcing the subjects to toil in their behalf ; 
this being the mode by which they will reap the largest 
harvest of wealth and power. Lastly, an attack of the 
people upon the property of an individual rich man no more 
proves that the people are hostile to the laws of property, 
than their attack upon his life would prove that they were 
inimical to the laws protecting life. In both instances, they 
may be misled to make a particular exception, but this 
does not prove them insensible to the value of the laws of 
property and life, or to the importance of adhering to them 
on other occasions. 



In the 'Westminster Eeview,' for April, 1826, appeared 
the celebrated article on Mitford's ' History of Greece.' 
It already evinces both the extent of his minute research and 
the decision of his views on Grecian politics. Whilst his 
democratic sympathies were engendered by the studies pur- 
sued in preparation for the History, his controversial faculty 
was aroused by the misstatements of this widely-read His- 
torian ; Mitford being at this period in possession of the 
educational field, as well in the universities as in family 
circles. 



WRITINGS FROM 1820 TO 1830. [13] 

The introduction to the article is a clear and condensed 
statement of the chain of cause and effect in the evolution 
of the Grecian mind. First of all was the subdivision of the 
Grecian population into a great number of distinct city-com- 
munities. The smallness of these communities brought the 
whole of the members into intimate fellowship and personal 
communication of views upon the public situation. In such 
a state of things, a hereditary chief, or mere head of a 
clan, could not hold his ground ; and the collective govern- 
ment of the state superseded personal government. The 
executive function was much better administered, being 
under the eye of the whole community. Moreover, every- 
thing in the condition of the Greeks favoured publicity of 
life, and interest in affairs. The desire of applause acquired 
extraordinary ascendency : and in this motive lay the sti- 
mulus to individual excellence in whatever accomplishments 
the public held in esteem. The extinction of the hereditary 
chiefs threw open the supreme power of the state to rivalry 
and competition ; and, when the circumstances excluded the 
agency of mere force, the grand and foremost engine was 
the power of persuasion, particularly as applied to assembled 
multitudes. The materials of persuasive address consisted 
of all manner of facts, analogies, and reasonings, bearing on 
the eligibility of any public measures ; involving a strong in- 
terest in contemporaneous critical history, the first specimen 
of which we owe to Thucvdides. When these various mental 
acquisitions were sought as means of ascendency, esteem was 
conferred on the man that could teach them. Numerous 
instructors arose, in Ehetoric chiefly and avowedly, but indi- 
rectly in all the branches of knowledge then existing ; and 
the success of those instructors in money and in fame was 
very great. But the teaching of the persuasive art led the 
way to the philosophy of the mind ; and it was amidst the 
intellectual excitement of ancient Greece that this master- 
science had its beginning. The field for the observation 
of human beings was no less ample than interesting : the 
variety of laws and institutions, the number of social experi- 



[14] CHAEACTEE AND WRITINGS. 

ments so to speak, the contentions of parties, tlie criticism 
of public men^ the diversities of individual excellence, in 
oratory, in poetry, in war, in legislation, stimulated critical 
enquiry into the causes of success. Superior men arose, with 
the aptitude for system and science ; by these the special 
experiences were converted into general rules ; and there 
thus gradually emerged the sciences of rhetoric, politics, 
etliics, and logic. 

Another influence was derived from the relio:ious festivals 
and gatherings. To these we apply the inadequate word 
games; the real term was contests (a'y(ove<;). The appetite 
for glory was greatly fostered at snch gatherings ; while the 
chief attention was given to gymnastic exercises ; but the 
garland was also bestowed for music and poetry. 

" Considerinsf the Grecian institutions as having: brouo-ht 
into operation these incentives to individual excellence, they 
will appear without a parallel in the history of humanity ; 
and judging by the same standard, too, it is abundantly 
certain that democracies were by far the best amon^; all the 
Grecian governments ; nor will it be too much to affirm, 
that had it not been for democracy, and that approximation 
to democracy which a numerous and open aristocracy pre- 
sents, this wonderful precocity of intellectnal development 
among the Greeks wonld have been impracticable, and that 
people would have been now forgotten amidst so many others 
who have marched only with the average pace of human 
improvement. Publicity and constant discussion of all matters 
relating to the general interest — accessibility of the public 
esteem, which could not be thoroughly monopolised by any 
predominant few — intense demand for those great political 
qualities which are fitted to command the respect alid assent 
of the general community — encouragement to eloquence, 
and to all those acquirements which eloquence presupposes, 
as well as to that system of instruction and mental philo- 
sophy which follows in its train — all these characteristics 
were to be found in the democracies more completely than in 
any other Grecian governments, and these, as we have above 



WEITINaS FROM 1820 TO 1830. [15] 

shown, were the great stimulating causes of Grecian eminence. 
Where a state was under the close government of one or of a 
few, circumstances were highly unfavourable to the develop- 
ment of individual superiority; the ruling powers not only 
held out no encouragement to it, but even interfered to sup- 
press and banish it by force as a rival to their own monopoly." 

It was never Mr. Grote's custom to advance positions of 
this nature without supporting them by facts: and his ex- 
posure of Mitford gives him an opportunity of unfolding his 
resources. I shall select only one point, because of its 
paramount interest, and because it is one of Grote's charac- 
teristic points of political doctrine. 

After giving a series of facts to set forth the atrocities 
of ancient oligarchy, he adds a testimony of tremendous and 
indisputable force. This is the oath (apparently the sena- 
torial oath) cited by Aristotle as formally sworn among some 
of the ancient oligarchies, containing these words — ''I will 
he evil-minded toicards the people, and will hring upon them 
hy my counsel ichatever mischief I can'' The philosopher's 
own remark is not less significant : his suggestion to the 
oligarchs being — '' Let them misgovern if they choose ; but 
let them at least employ some decent pretences to delude 
the people into a belief of the contrary." But for our ex- 
perience of the irresistible effect of the habit of submission 
among men, we might wonder that any government thus 
afi'ected towards its subjects could be suffered to exist a 
single month. Yet the subversion of the oligarchies almost 
always arose, not so much from popular resistance as from 
dissensions among the leading men themselves ; there being 
always room for aspiring nobles to acquire popularity by 
appearing to act as protectors of the oppressed many. Thus 
were formed two aristocratic parties — denominated by Mitford 
the party of the poor, and the party of the rich ; appellations 
employed both by Plato and by Aristotle, but yet involving 
an important mistake. The party called the " party of the 
poor," ought to be called the community minus the rich. 
Rich and not-rich are the proper terms for bisecting the 



[16] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

commimity. The classification into rich and poor is a fal- 
lacy, the source of many most erroneous political reasonings. 
Thus, according to Aristotle, Oligarchy has a place when 
the wealthy few possess the government, and employ their 
power for their own ends, not for the public good ; Demo- 
cracy is when the poor many, possessing the powers of 
government, use these powers for their own interest, not the 
public interest. The pliilosopher seems to imagine that if 
the wealthy as a class possess no distinct privileges, the 
government is necessarily in the hands of the poor, and that 
the poor have an interest contrary to the public interest. 
Now the word " poor " is here used in a double sense : it 
signifies at one time the whole community excepting the 
rich; and at another time the destitute poor. Only in this 
last sense can the poor ever be said to have an interest 
distinct from the public interest ; the whole community ex- 
cluding the rich has obviously the same interest as the 
whole communitv includino; the rich. As not more than one 
man in a hundred can be called rich, ninety-nine hundredths 
of the community are poor ; and the interest of ninety-nine 
hundredths of the community must always be the same as 
the interest of the whole communitv. 

There can be little doubt that the persistent denunciations 
of Grecian democracy, of which Mitford's book is a notable 
sample, were kept up for the sake of their application to 
modern instances; and Mr. Grote, by his vindication of 
Athens, has powerfully counterworked one of the machina- 
tions for retarding the growth of popular government in the 
present day. He is, however, fully alive to the weaknesses 
and defects of the old democracies, just as he is sensible of 
many defects in the popular constitutions of oiu^ own time ; 
but, *• taking these defects at the utmost, and comparing the 
Grecian democracies with any other form of government, 
either existing in ancient times, or projected by the ancient 
philosophers, we have no hesitation in pronouncing them 
decidedly and unquestionably superior. That the securities 
they provided for good government were lamentably de- 



WEiriNGS FROM 1820 TO 1830. [17] 

ficient, we fully admit; but tlie oligarchies and inonarcliies 
afforded no securities at all." The complaint made against 
these democracies, by Xenophon and Aristotle, was not that 
they missed their own end, but that they aimed at, and to a 
certain degree attained, the happiness of all the free citizens, 
minus the rich, to the prejudice of the separate interests of 
the rich. 

His replies to Mitford's other charges, — that the popular 
assemblies were fickle in their decisions ; that the democra- 
cies were unstable and torn with dissensions ; that, in them 
rich men were unduly taxed (as by the liturgies at Athens) ; 
that unjust accusations were preyalent ; that re-diyision of 
the lands was a fayourite measure of democracy, — are oyer- 
whelming from the array of counter facts to every one. 

The latter half of the article is occupied with exposing the 
gross peryersions in Mitford's narratiye of transactions. This 
we need not exemplify ; for although the calumnies against 
democracy baye a permanent yitality/the historical blunders 
of such writers as Mitford are dead and decomposed. It is 
not often that the mild temper of Mr. Grote permitted of 
sarcasm, so we may quote this sentence from the criticism 
of Mitford's inaccuracies respecting the early proceedings of 
Philip of Macedon : — " Ancient writers haye left us lament- 
ably in the dark respecting many most important parts of 
ancient history; but we ought not to be seyere upon them 
for their want of minuteness in describing plans which 
were never concerted, and treaties which were never entered 
into." 

The article concludes thus : — " It is sufiiciently obvious 
that the historian who can thus deviate from his authorities 
in recounting specific facts, is still less to be relied upon for 
accuracy in any general views, where the result arising from 
a comparison of seyeral different authorities, not separately 
assignable, is to be laid before the reader. If partiality can 
discolour the former, it will prevent any approximation to 
truth in the latter. And should Grecian history ever be 
re-written with care and fidelity, we venture to predict that 

c 



[18] CHAEACTER AND WRITINGS. 

Mr. Mitford's reputation, for these as well as for other de- 
sirable qualities, will be prodigiously lowered. That it 
should have remained so long exalted, is a striking proof 
how much more apparent than real is the attention paid to 
Greek literature in this country ; and how much that atten- 
tion, where it is sincere and real, is confined to the techni- 
calities of the language, or the intricacies of its metres, 
instead of being employed to unfold the mechanism of 
society, and to bring to view the numerous illustrations 
Avhich Grecian phenomena afford, of the principles of human 
nature. It is not surprising, indeed, that the general views 
of Mr. Mitford should be eminently agreeable to the reigning 
interests in England ; nor that instructors devoted to those 
interests should carefully discourage all those mental quali- 
ties which might enable their pupils to look into evidence 
for themselves, and to deduce just inferences from the Greek 
authors who are put into their hands. But though such 
instructors cannot be prevented from teaching superficially, 
they may at least be deprived of the credit of teaching 
otherwise than superficially; and few works would more 
effectually conduce to this end than a good history of 
Greece."* 

* It ought to be mentioned, in recording the literary labours of 
Mr. Grote during this decade, that he bestowed much time upon 
some MSS. of Jeremy Bentham's, which the venerable sage en- 
treated his young disciple to put into a readable form. 

The pile of materials being carefully digested and arranged by 
George Grote, he produced in 1822 a small octavo volume, with 
the following title : "• Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion 
on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind, by Philip Beauchamp." 

The MS. was handed to Mr. Place, who employed Eichard 
Carlile to print the tract ; the reason being that Carlile was lying 
in Dorchester gaol, and thus safe from farther prosecution. At 
that period the London booksellers were afraid of having anything 
to do with writings wherein Eehgion was in question. The 
original papers, in Bentham's handwriting, became the property of 
Mrs. George Grote under the Author's will, and are still extant, as 
well as the letter to G. Grote which accompanied the packet. 



SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [19] 



CHAPTEK II. 

SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. 

On the 25th of April, 1833, Mr. Grote made his first motion 
in favour of the BaHot. 

At the outset of his speech he quotes Lord John Eussell's 
expression in originally proposing the Reform Bill: — "So 
constituting this House, as that it should enjoy, and com- 
mand, and deserve, the confidence of the people." He calls 
on the House now to review the mode of taking votes upon 
the same simple, precise, and momentous principle. The 
Reform Bill has given a numerous and intelligent commu- 
nity, say a million of voters. What would have been said if 
there had been a clause in the bill dividing that constituency 
into two classes — one class free, the other subject voters ? 
What if the bill had numbered all the tenants on a great 
man's esta?te, and all occupiers of houses under him, as so 
many lip-voters, necessary, indeed, as mechanical instru- 
ments for transmitting his will to the hustings, but legally 
incapable of expressing any determination but his ? But it 
is not by law alone that the freedom of voting is subverted ; 
natural causes may work the same thing. One half of the 
present constituency are unable to call their votes their own. 
No doubt there are some splendid examples of political 
virlue — men who give an honest vote and incur the con- 
sequent hazard ; but the larger number stifle the voice of 
conscience, and give way before an overruling destiny. 
The public mischief thus arising is that the House does not 
command the confidence of the people ; the elective system 
is a failure and a nullity ; for the only characteristic dis- 
tinguishing it from a vain mummery is the genuine suffrage 
of each qualified voter. The private mischiefs are the solemn 
falsehoods at the poll, the sense of self-abasement at being 

c 2 



[20] 



CHARACTEE AND "WRITINGS. 



/ 



the mstrni^gj^i^ ^f another's \Yill, the political apathy and 
recklessr^gg^ the thousand angry feelings everywhere accom- 
panyipg priyate terrorism. Xow, \\hateYer be the sources 
^* /Ais evil, the condition of its agency is publicity of votes, 
-^-iie Ballot may not put an end to all persecution for political 
sentimentSj but it will put an end to compulsory and insincere 
voting. In France, during the last ten years, the Ballot 
proved the single guarantee against an overwhelming govern- 
ment ascendency. 

Under the Ballot individual bribery could have no place ; 
collective bribery would be hazardous and difficult. But for 
one vote perverted by bribery, twenty are perverted by in- 
timidation. 

He next deals with the objections to secrecy, as tending to 
mendacity and promise-breaking. Now it is true that a 
tenant voting by Ballot onay thus break his promise, but 
why should you suppose that he ^vill do so ? There is only 
one answer ; the promise has been given contrary to his 
genuine and conscientious feeling. Preferring A in his 
conscience, the elector has beencon strained to promise that 
he will vote for B ; such a promise involves the inecessity of 
lying one way or the other ; either to his country, if he keeps 
the promise, or to his superior, if he breaks it. But what 
falsehood can be worse than a dishonest vote at the poll ? If 
a juror who gives a dishonest verdict, or a witness who de- 
poses an untruth, sins in poisoning the fountains of justice, 
the electoral trust-breaker sins scarcely less in poisoning the 
fountains of legislation. The opponents of the Ballot talk 
as if the only falsehood a voter can tell is the breaking faith 
with one who has extorted from him a dishonest promise. 
There is another and greater wrong, the breaking faith with 
the public. What this House should recognise is the superior 
obligation of the public trust to the private pledge. The 
promise is bad enough; the act would be far worse. All 
that can be said against the Ballot is, that it enables these 
compulsory and immoral promises to be violated with impu- 
nity ; thus getting rid of the more noxious of the two lies. 



SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [21] 

But this is not the fair way of looking at the effect of the 
secret vote. The compulsory and dishonest promises, whence 
the lyiug proceeds, will seldom be exacted. To tie a man 
down to a hateful pledge, when you cannot ascertain whether 
he keeps it, is a fruitless affront ; tending to rouse the galling 
ideas of coercion, without attaining a real hold over the 
conduct. 

Even now, is there no promise-breaking under the open 
vote? Does it not eternally happen that a dependent is 
compelled by his superior to break a promise already 
voluntarily made to another ? 

Speaking in a whisper is not synonymous with lying; 
much less is speaking aloud synonymous with openness of 
heart and truth-telling. There are cases where secrecy 
conduces to fraud ; there are cases where it is the only sure 
road to truth. When a witness deposes to facts, it is 
essential that his testimony should be public ; but when 
you wish a man's private unbiassed judgment, you will be 
nearer your end by making his communication strictly con- 
fidential. This last is the situation of an elector at the 
poll. 

He then proceeds to another favourite objection. The 
elective franchise, it is said, is a trust ; every elector is 
responsible for the way that he exercises it ; publicity is a 
necessary consequence, for the sake of the non-electors. He 
admits that there would be great weight in the argument, 
if the objector could show that open voting was either a 
benefit or a security to the non-electors. He thinks he can 
prove that the reverse is the fact. He assumes that the 
electoral trust means this, namely, that an elector shall 
deliver his genuine and conscientious opinion at the poll, 
whether it agrees or disagrees with that of other people. 
Now this can be obtained only by his own free will ; no 
extremity of force can wring it from him. The open vote 
cannot convert a single voter from dishonesty to honesty ; but 
it makes thousands of honest voters dishonest against their 
inclinations. Every voter becomes controllable by one or a 



[22J CHAEACTER AND WEITINGS. 

few private masters, who exercise over his comfort a para- 
mount influence. Under the mask of responsibility to the 
public, you fasten round his neck the base and dismal chain 
of private dependence. Moreover, is it really contended 
that non-voters are competent to exercise control or super- 
vision over the voters ? The onlv reason for setting: them 
aside as non- voters, is their presumed incapacity of judging 
on political subjects. When the non-electors do intermeddle 
it is as ardent partisans, and in a manner purely mis- 
chievous. Dictation by a private individual, the vultus 
instantis iyranni, and dictation by an assembled crowd, the 
civium ardor prava jvheniium, end in the same deplorable 
result — spurious and insincere voting. 

If the voters are sufficiently numerous, and well-dis- 
tributed, so as to have collectively the same interests as the 
community, they can have no wish except to choose 
honestly ; and this is the only ground on which the recent 
extension of the constituency can be vindicated. If respon- 
sibility had to be relied upon, as the guarantee for honest 
voting, any extension of the constituency would have been 
absurd and injurious ; a small constituency is far more 
pointedly responsible than a numerous one ; every step in 
enlarging the electoral body, is a step in diminution of the 
responsibility of each individual elector. Nay, upon this 
principle, the single-headed constituency of Old Sarum would 
have been the best in the whole kingdom. 

Another argument is that the influence of rich men over 
voters is a very salutary thing, and that the Ballot is mis- 
chievous as tending to abridge it. 

" How much influence over voters ought a rich man to 
have ? As much as he can purchase ? No, certainly — for 
even the present law forbids all idea of his purchasing any 
influence. Not as much as he can purchase, but as much as 
he deserves, and as much as unconstrained freemen are 
willing to pay him. Amongst unconstrained freemen, the 
man of recognised superiority will be sure to acquire spon- 
taneous esteem and deference ; these are his just deserts?, 



SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [23] 

and they come to him unbidden and unbespoken. But. they 
will come to him multiplied tenfold, if along with such 
intrinsic excellencies, he possesses the extrinsic recom- 
mendations of birth and fortune — if he be recommended to 
the attention of his neighbours by the conspicuous blazon of 
established opulence and station — and if he be thus fur- 
nished with the means of giving ample range and effect to 
an enlightened beneficence. This is the meed which awaits 
men of birth and station, if they do but employ their 
faculties industriously and to the proper ends. Poorer men 
may, doubtless, attain it also ; but with them the ascent is 
toilsome, the obstructions numerous, and the success at best 
uncertain : to the rich man the path is certain and easy — 
the wiUing public meet him half way, and joyfully hail the 
gradual opening of his virtues. He is the man to whom 
they delight to pay homage ; and their idolatrous fancy 
forestalls and exaggerates his real merits. 

" This, Sir, is, in my opinion, the legitimate influence of 
wealth and station; to ser^e as the passport, the ally, and 
the handmaid, of superior worth and talent. This influence 
is as gentle and kindly as it is lasting and infallible ; it is 
self-created and self-preserving ; and it is, morever, twice 
blest, for it blesses as well the few who exercise it, as the 
many over whom it is exercised." 

But it is the curse and misery of our species that the 
great and wealthy choose to govern by mere dint of wealth 
and station, unallied with those beneficent ingredients. 
Wealth, in any hands, carries with it the power of befriend- 
ing one man, and injuring another ; it can extort the votes 
that the possessor has not virtue enough to earn. This is 
the illegitimate influence of wealth and station— when it 
supersedes and disenthrones the diviner qualities of the man 
and the hero. Under open voting, the influence of wealth 
is alike in every hand ; nay, the worse a man is, the more 
effectively he will employ the bad weapons. The Ballot 
decomposes the mixture of good and evil, with the exactness 
of a chemical agent. The man that employs wealth and 



[24] CHAEACTER AND WRITINGS. 

station as they ought to be employed will not lose a particle 
of influence; his standard is planted in the interior of men's 
bosoms ; his ascendency is as sure and as operative in the 
dark as in the light. And what would be the harm, if that 
coarser and baser influence, which cannot subsist witiiout 
coercive force, were suppressed and extirpated altogether? 
The question was started by Berkeley, " Whether an un- 
educated gentry are not the greatest of all natural evils ?" 
The counter part of the proposition is no less true — That a 
gentry well-educated and of enlarged sympathies, are 
among the foremost of national blessings. The most effectual 
way of preserving that blessing will be to render the vote of 
an elector inaccessible to all coercion, and attainable only 
by such as have gained his genuine esteem. This is tlie 
only prize that can stimulate the listlessness, or soften the 
natural pride, of one whose wealth places him above 
the equal communion of his fellow-men; and by rendering 
the sufi*rage secret, you lock this precious prize in a casket, 
which can neither be stolen by fraud, nor ravished by 
tyranny ; you reserve it in the inmost sanctuary, as a free- 
will offering to ascertained merit, and as a stimulus to all 
noble aspirations. 

In the peroration, he says : — '' If ever there was a case in 
which the address to your reason was vehemently and 
powerfully seconded by the appeal to your feelings, that 
case is the emancipation of honest voters — the making peace 
between a man's duty and his worldly cares — the rescue of 
political morality from the snares which now beset it, and 
from the storms which now lay it prostrate. You are called 
upon to protect the rights, and to defend the integrity, of 
the electoral conscience ; to shield the innocent from perse- 
cution at the hands of the guilty ; to guard the common- 
wealth against innumerable breaches of trust, committed by 
the reluctant hands of well-meaning citizens. You are 
called upon to bridle the tyranny of those who violate, by 
the same blow, their duty to their neighbour and their duty 
to their country. You are called upon to encourage the 



SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [25] 

formation of an electoral conscience in those bosoms where 
it has as yet had no existence ; and to cure that recklessness 
and immorality with which unprincipled voters now prosti- 
tute their franchise, in order to conciliate custom or pro- 
motion. Above all, you are called upon to make this House, 
what it professes and purports to be, a real emanation 
from the pure and freespoken choice of the electors ; an 
assembly of men commanding the genuine esteem and 
confidence of the people, and consisting of persons, the 
fittest which the nation affords, for executing the true end 
and aim of government. When all these vast interests, 
collective and individual, are at stake in this one measure, 
am I not justified in demanding from you not merely a 
cold and passive attention, but an earnest sympathy and 
solicitude ? " 

The motion was vigorously supported, in a short speech, by 
Dr. Lushington. Mr. Cobbett replied to the objections founded 
on the American use of the Ballot. Daniel O'Connell made 
a short and telling speech, which brought up Sir Eobert 
Peel, who dwelt upon the apathy and dead languor that 
w^ould take place if canvassing were put an end to ; the 
impossibility of preserving secrecy ; the evil of making the 
House more democratic than it is. It was merely absurd to 
say that a man with ten thousand a year should not have 
more influence over the Legislature of the country than a 
man of ten pounds a year. He thought universal suffrage 
more plausible than vote by Ballot. There were arguments 
in favour of extending the franchise to women, to which it 
was no easy matter to find any logical answer : other and 
more important duties were intrusted to women ; women were 
allowed to hold property, to vote on many occasions in virtue 
of that property — nay, a woman might inherit the Throne, 
and perform all the functions of the first office of the State. 
The electoral system had not had a fair trial ; and members 
would be better employed in reading the report of the Poor- 
Law Commissioners, and considering some remedies for the 
evils there depicted. 



[26] CHAKACTER AND WRITINGS. 

The vote was — Ayes, 106 ; Noes, 211 ; Pairs, 26. 

The second occasion of bringing on the motion was on the 
3rd of June, 1835. He had the advantage of being able to 
appeal to the recent election as furnishing abundant instances 
of gross intimidation, and by the help of these, and by vary- 
ing his illustrations, he contrived to impart a degree of 
freshness that was not apparent in any of the speeches in 
reply. 

He began by assuming that in conferring upon any man 
the title and functions of an elector, you really intend to 
invest him with a substantive and independent character. 
The contrary would imply, that Parliament, while pretending 
to bestow a vote upon him, designs, in fact, to bestow under- 
hand a second vote upon somebody else. If the law intends 
to play this trick with voters, the sooner it is proclaimed the 
better. The secret voter may give a wrong judgment, but 
at all events his vote is his own determination. Publicity of 
the suffrage enables intermeddlers from without to work 
on the hopes and fears of individual electors. Eeferring to 
the recent election, he observed that the newspapers of 
every party abounded with complaints of undue influence ; 
so familiar was it, that it seemed the ordinary course of 
nature in the electioneering world. Sometimes a landlord 
generally notified to his tenants that he did not mean to 
interfere with their votes ; but this edict of manumission 
would appear both preposterous and insulting, if the pre- 
existing dependence had not been felt. The voters seem 
to be considered as lawful prize and prey, milium ac tuiye 
^ecus, belonging of right to that party which can drag them 
with the greatest violence. It is but too evident that the 
efforts of the imperative classes of society to subjugate the 
will of the humbler voters are nowise likely to be suspended 
or relaxed for the future. He next criticised a bill brought 
in by the member for Shaftesbury (Mr. Poulter), for making 
intimidation penal, and concluded with a reply to the stock 
of objections to the Ballot (its being un-English ; causing 



SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [27] 

promises to be broken ; witbdrawing responsibility from the 
voter ; reducing the influence of the wealthy.) 
' Lord Howick insisted that the machinery of the Ballot 
was impracticable. Lord John Russell saw no hope of 
improvement, except in the better dispositions of the men 
of property themselves. Lord Stanley was at much pains to 
show that the G-rey cabinet when they carried the Reform 
Bill, had come under a pledge to go no farther. Sir Robert 
Peel spoke at some length, but with no originality. 
Division, 146 for, to 319 against. 

The following year (1836) on the 23rd of June, instead of 
a motion declaratory of the principle of the Ballot, Mr. Grote 
brought in a bill containing the provisions and machinery 
for secret voting. 

It would be superfluous, he remarks, to insist upon what 
all constitutional writers admit, that the primary condition 
of representative government is the eflScient operation of the 
elective principle. It is therefore no waste of time to con- 
sider the question of freedom or purity of election. What 
are the facts at present? So notorious are the evils and 
abuses that they are come to be treated as light and familiar. 
In introducing the Reform Act, Lord Grey proclaimed that 
nomination of members of Parliament should cease to exist. 
It is time to fulfil this beneficent pledge. The reality and 
prevalence of election abuses can now be made to rest on the 
testimony of Committees of the House, which have brought 
out a body of dark and infamous details, showing the springs 
and working of what we extol and sanctify under the name 
of representation. AU parties make loud complaints of 
intimidation. Much is made, in the Irish elections, of intimi- 
dation by the people and the priests, but still more frequent 
is the dictation of landlords and agents, and of the rich in 
general. Irish abuses are only English abuses on a gigantic 
scale. The clergy of the Church of England have not been 
behindhand in their zeal at the critical moment of an election ; 
the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge dis- 



[28] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

missed his gardener for refusing to vote for the present 
member for that town. But the nation in its collective 
majesty has a paramount title to the free and independent' 
suffrage of each separate elector. It is time for the House 
to interpose a remedy when the distempers of our electoral 
system have been proclaimed by its own authority. Have 
gentlemen made up their minds to see this leprosy cleave to 
us and to our posterity for ever? The remedy is secret 
voting. It trenches on no existing rights. Voting by Ballot 
is unfettered and unbiassed voting ; when Cicero, in speaking 
of the Ballot at Rome, calls it Tahellse, vindex tacitse libertatis 
— the upholder of silent liberty — he says what is emphatically 
true. 

He next goes on to reply to objections. It is said, that 
however an elector may vote, people will guess or suspect 
how he has voted. Why so ? Because his sentiments are 
known, and he has no motive to depart from them. There 
is an eternal and indissoluble alliance between secrecy and 
freedom. Gentlemen make intimidation by the mob an 
object of abhorrence ; they may abolish it by a measure that 
protects from all modes of intimidation at once. The much- 
extolled responsibility of the elector is either a phantom or 
a mask for the precise mischief of intimidation. The pub- 
licity of the votes of members of Parliament rests on three 
distinct grounds, all absent in the case of the electors. The 
smallness of their number gives them an interest of their 
own, apart from, and often hostile to, the community; the 
same smallness enables the public to watch their conduct ; 
lastly, the speciality and continuity of their functions also 
enable the public to judge wliether they discharge their 
duties. But, on the other hand, how idle to talk of the 
responsibility of seven or eight hundred thousand persons. 
Lord John Eussell had said the Ballot would remove the 
electors from good and improving influences. But what 
are the good influences that can operate upon a man apart 
from his own conscience and conviction? The good in- 
fluences will really be expanded and fostered* The 



SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [29] 

specific agency of the Ballot is against intimidation; its 
effect is not so conclusive, but will still be powerful against 
bribery. There may be a corrupt agreement in a small 
constituency ; but this proves only that small constituencies 
are faulty. Surely it is a noble object to watch over and 
cherish the honest and untainted portion of the constituency. 
As to the breaking of promises, the first purpose of a repre- 
sentation is to collect the real sense of the qualified voters ; 
the duty towards a private party is a secondary object. Yet 
the Ballot does not command any man to break his promise ; 
it merely enjoins him to perform the act of voting without a 
witness. Promise-breaking in this situation is the proof that 
the voter has been constrained. To tell the intimidator 
— because you have compelled a voter to promise against his 
will, therefore you have acquired a good title to compel him 
to vote, — is to guarantee the last stage of tyranny out of 
respect to the first. Then as to the influence of property, 
there is onlv one influence that will be withdrawn — the 
power of rewarding or. punishing electors according to their 
vote. Does the House recognise in any one citizen of this 
community — a peer or commoner, titled or untitled — a legi- 
timate authority to reward or punish electors for their votes ? 

Leader seconded the motion in a speech of some length, 
and Charles Villiers spoke with his wonted ability in the 
course of the debate. None of the Whig or Tory leaders 
spoke. 

The House divided — Ayes 88 ; Noes 139. 

On the 8th of March, 1837, the motion was next brought 
forward, also in the shape of a bill ; but the speech abstained 
from the explanation of the machinery in detail. I select a 
few of the points. 

It is not enough to say that secret voting disengages you 
altogether from the disorderly tumult and vexatious obstruc- 
tion inseparable from the pronouncing of a candidate's name 
at the hustings, and from the continuous proclamation of the 
varying state of the poll. The main purpose is to procure 



[30] CHAEACTER AND WRITINGS. 

free, sincere, and independent voting. This ought to secure 
for it the consent of all parties ; for how can any man repu- 
diate the principle of general freedom of votes, without 
assuming to himself a despotism little less monstrous than 
the ancient inquisition in matters of religion ? Free agency 
is the very soul of voting. Such is the English constitution 
in theory at least. Listen to Blackstone, and you will be 
beo:uiled into the belief that everv man's vote is his own 
vote ; descend into the committee-room, and you will find 
that the canvassers of election rack their ingenuity to dis- 
cover, not modes of persuasion, but modes either of com- 
pulsion or of seduction. It was acknowledged by the present 
Prime Minister only last year, that the great evil of the day 
is that every one thinks he has a right to employ his influence 
over another. 

In an article in the ' Edinburgh Eeview ' against the Ballot 
(written by Lord Brougham), tlie extent of intimidation at 
elections is described in language which it is impossible to 
surpass. On this point the reports of the committees of this 
House afford materials enough for the most insatiable appe- 
tite. Wherever any man possesses the means of inflicting 
injury on another, or withholding benefits, the power is used 
for electioneering purposes. As to exclusive dealing, the 
Tory organs are preaching it openly as a matter of political 
obligation. For all this, no one else has suggested any 
remedy. The Ballot will be an act of emancipation for all 
dependent voters. Some gentlemen tell us that while averse 
to theoretical or organic reforms, they burn with zeal for the 
removal of all proved abuses. Let them peruse the report 
of the Intimidation Committee, and they will find a harvest 
of proved abuses, rank, and pining for the sickle. Whence 
is it that election abuses in all their grossness and variety, 
at least three parts out of four, take their origin ? It is 
from the struggles of extraneous tyranny to grasp the vote 
of the voter. Now the surest mode of warfare against crime 
is to disappoint the criminal of his exj)ected booty. Instead 
of secrecy being dishonourable, it is used in every private 



SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [31] 

association, and its introduction is only treading in the beaten 
path of sound and practical legislation. Objectors, putting 
aside freedom of election as a light and worthless consi- 
deration, reproach the Ballot with multiplying false promises 
and false declarations. What then? Is there to be no 
privacy anywhere because falsehoods may be made and 
remain undiscovered ? The secrecy of the post opens a door 
to falsehood ; yet if there be any act of despotism that excites 
peculiar abhorrence it is the breaking the seal of private 
letters. Persecutors of every class may well be angry with 
the Ballot; it enables the voter to do his duty without 
baring his bosom to the assault of private malice. The 
victims of religious oppression in all ages, have carried on 
their worship secretly, and no historian has ever dared to 
revile them. Is it an unpardonable sin, under the pressure 
of penalties, to combine outward conformity with secret dis- 
sent ? Secrecy is the refuge of the weak against the strong. 
Publicity enables the political prosecutor to combine with 
the hundred arms of Briareus, the hundred eyes of Argus. 
If the Ballot makes hypocrites, open voting makes hypocrites, 
at least as many in number and much more in kind. Under 
the Ballot influence will be futile : when the process of 
intimidation is forbidden to be consummated, it will not be 
begun. Then, as to bribery. A voter accustomed to take 
bribes will feel that his market is struck from under him when 
he is directed to vote in secrecy. In ensuring ignorance of 
the poll, it prevents the candidate from knowing how many 
votes he must buy to secure his majority. Next, as to the 
argument from responsibility. You cannot make the elector 
responsible for voting ill ; for where is the standard ? Among 
Tories, to vote ill is to vote for a Whig or a Eadical, and 
conversely. As to the multitude that have no votes, why are 
they excluded ? What arguments should we hear in reply 
to a motion for universal suffrage ? But if these men are to 
coerce the voters, admit then at once they are the superior 
party of the two. If the non-electors acted generally on the 
invitation given to them, we should have universal suffrage 



[32] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

practically, but brought about by the most violent and un- 
warrantable means. The unrepresented classes have nothing 
to lose and much to gain, from placiog every qualified voter 
in circumstances for an honest and conscientious use of his 
franchise ; it concerns them that the poorer voters should not 
be subservient to the richer; that the franchise should be 
kept at least as wide as at present. At one time the Ballot 
is assailed because it will extinguish the influence of wealth ; 
at another time because it will extino:uish the influence of 
disfranchised poverty. If you insist that the elector shall 
be responsible to the people at large, you are bound to pro- 
tect him against the tyranny of the great man in his neigh- 
bourhood. Coercion and counter-coercion are assumed to be 
the essential and tutelary forces which keep the electors in 
their proper orbit. It often happens that the pressure from 
two opposing quarters is so violent that the elector knows 
not which he ought to obey. 

The concludino; sentences are : — " I feel that in advocatinsr 
the Ballot, I am upholding nothing less than the sacred right 
of free judgment and free utterance in political matters. I 
am treading in the steps of those illustrious men who have 
rescued the individual conscience from its trammels, and 
vindicated its liberty and inviolability in matters of religion. 
I am striving to baffle the guilty efforts of that spirit of 
persecution which still harasses the political world, and still 
defiles the sincerity and solemnity of the elective franchise. 
If, Sir, you can break the sword of the persecutor, and assure 
freedom of election, without the aid of the Ballot, proceed to 
the task without delay, for never was there a case of more 
pressing necessity. But when it is notorious that this can- 
not be done, and when the alternative of the Ballot is ready 
within your reach, I beseech you to consider whether you 
can, with a safe conscience, license and perpetuate the count- 
less mischiefs of an unprotected suff*rage." 

The debate was short, and the opposition was somewhat 
milder in tone than in former years. 

The House divided — Ayes, 155 ; Noes, 267 ; Pairs, 5. 



SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [33] 

The motion was renewed in the recently elected Parlia- 
ment of 1838 (16th of February) ; and the mover availed 
himself of the experience at the elections. 

If it were proposed to cut down the present number of 
seven hundred thousand qualified electors to four hundred 
thousand, the attempt would be resisted alike by those who 
desired to adhere to the present franchise, and those who 
desired to enlarge it. Yet open voting is a practical dis- 
franchisement to hundreds and thousands of electors. Many 
decline to exercise the franchise at all : and with regard to 
those who do vote, what is the difference between taking 
away the vote and taking away the voter's liberty of voting 
as he inwardly prefers ? There is little difference of opinion 
as to the main purposes of a representative government ; it 
is to get a House of Commons possessing the confidence of 
the people ; for this we go through the harassing and costly 
business of a general election. Does the practical working 
conform to this ? The evidence shows that the existing 
system is not a representative system. Many votes are 
given, of all shades of party, that express the genuine senti- 
ments of the electors ; with respect to a large proportion, 
the reverse is the truth. The innumerable discourses of 
candidates on the hustings during the late election, the 
daily criminations and recriminations of all the newspapers 
— Whig, Tory, and Radical — all certify the virulence of the 
evil. He quoted a number of individual testimonies — Lord 
Palmerston at Tiverton, the Whig and Tory versions of the 
election in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and others. The 
number of ejectments, notices to quit, changes of dealing 
and dismissals of employment, if it could be collected, would 
be large and remarkable ; and as one punishment inflicted 
corresponds to a thousand persons deterred, these acts are 
but a small proportion of the cases of undue interference. 
In many cases, the franchise is hated as a burden. An 
election sheds a disastrous twilight over all the relations of 
social life, — tyranny, ruin for conscientious behaviour, 
success of unprincipled compliance, suspension of inter- 

d 



[34] CHARACTEB AND WRITINGS. 

course, factitious riot and disorder. If no protection be 
allowed, the franchise must fall into the same degeneracy 
and disgrace as the old system before 1831. Lord John 
Russell had expressed his strong sense of the " terrible 
position " of the landlords, and rather than that it should 
continue, he would adopt the Ballot. Since then, there have 
been two general elections, and the terrible position is un- 
affected. If the supporters of the Reform Act wish to reap 
the good they have sown, they must adopt the inexpugnable 
safeguard of the secret vote. As knowledge is power, 
absence of knowledge is absence of power. It is in vain to 
reason with the intimidator, to cajole him, to cry shame 
upon him, to hold out legal penalties. Intimidation is too 
gentlemanlike and fashionable to be subdued by such leaden 
weapons. It is the inmate of courts and manor-houses : the 
cherished companion of lordly bosoms : all the pride of 
wealth and rank, and all the fierceness of political bigotry 
conspire to uphold it; the clergyman who discourses elo- 
quently in the pulpit on charity and forgiveness of enemies, 
neither enjoins nor manifests any such dispositions during a 
contested election ; even ladies of high fashion are not 
ashamed to direct W'ith their own delicate hands, the instant 
discontinuance of a tradesman who has dared to vote for the 
shocking Radical. Under the Ballot those who now dictate 
votes by means of servile and selfish fears must resort to 
other methods of guidance : if they disdain to substitute 
persuasion for control, they will be left, as they ought to be, 
to impotent and unavailing complaints. Some persons 
maintain, that secret voting will be inoperative unless 
canvassing is also prohibited. The word '^ canvassing " is 
equivocal ; it includes something that is harmless and even 
indispensable, and much that is revolting and odious. Under 
the Ballot, you would have a committee and a canvass ; to 
consult the prevailing sentiment, to communicate informa- 
tion, to rectify mistakes, and to convince, as well as might 
be, such as are adverse. Beyond these limits begins the 
odious part of the practice. In no scene on the face of the 



SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [35] 

earth are the harassing and ungenerous arts of enforcing 
constrained compliance more skilfully practised than at an 
English election. Then as to violation of promises. What 
is the behaviour of a country gentleman when the Tory 
canvassers tell him that Farmer So-and So, his tenant, has 
promised his vote to the Eadical candidate ? To hear the 
arguments against the Ballot, one would think an election 
by open voting was a school of probity and veracity. Instead 
of that, the promise of a dependent voter is respected just so 
far as it coincides with the will and dictates of his superior. 
The promises now broken are precisely the best class of 
promises. The elector is under a paramount obligation, 
from which no act of his own can discharge him, to give his 
vote according to his own conscientious preference. A 
promise to vote contrary to his own judgment, is a premedi- 
tated breach of solemn public duty. If there be in human 
affairs an unlawful covenant, that is one of the deepest dye ; 
wrong in the man who gives the pledge, wrong in the 
highest degree, and altogether without excuse or extenuation, 
in the man who extorts it. The responsibility of the elector 
is an abuse of terms. It is seduction and intimidation under 
another name. 

The debate that followed was well sustained. The motion 
was seconded by Mr. Ward, in an effective speech. Mr. 
James referred to a time some years ago, w^hen he presented 
a petition in favour of the Ballot, which was received with 
shouts of laughter. Lytton Bulwer spoke in favour of the 
motion. Lord John Eussell replied at some length. It was 
on this occasion that Sir Eobert Peel made his principal 
speech on the subject ; merely the old topics more elabo- 
rately worded. He treated the position of the elector and of 
the member of Parliament as the same ; he declared that the 
best institutions had their abuses; the abuses in elections 
were greatly exaggerated ; secret voting is at variance with 
the institutions, usages, and feelings of the people, and witli 
free discussion ; then, there will be no secrecy with the 
Ballot ; on the day of election, the doubtful voter will be 

d 2 



[36] CHAEACTER AND WRITINGS. 

asked to stay away; the voter will as a rule keep his 
promise, or else blab to his wife or somebody, who will tell 
the agent ; there may be great political outbursts, when the 
public are so unreasonably prejudiced, that they need 
enlio:htened control : the Ballot has not worked well in 
other countries, nor did it in Kome; it will have to be 
followed by universal suffrage. 

The Division stood— Ayes, 200 ; Noes, 317. 

The sixth and last time the motion was made, was on the 
18th of June, 1839. The speech introducing it was less 
than a column of the newspaper report. Apologising for 
iteration, he said his historical experience had taught him 
that it was not the introduction of novel arguments which 
political truth depended upon for its success, but in having 
the proper arguments frequently brought forward and con- 
sidered. It was not fruitfulness of invention that enabled 
the advocates of Catholic emancipation to carry their point : 
the novelty of every argument had been exhausted long 
before the final triumph. Even though they meant the 
Eeform Act to be final, did they mean also to embalm its 
deformities ? As the evils were fully admitted, why did not 
some one propose a remedy different from the Ballot ? He 
could not understand the objection of its being too demo- 
cratic a measure, unless the objectors held that democratical 
opinions prevailed amongst the majority of the electors 
throughout the country, and that the Ballot would enable 
them to vote more freely in favour of theii' opinions. The 
measure was indispensable to any state of the franchise — 
household, educational, or universal. He did not envy the 
feelings of any gentleman, who, after having witnessed a 
contested election, did not feel for the hardships to which 
many persons were exposed, and who did not wish that 
some measure of protection should be extended to them. 
The undue interference with the exercise of the suffrage 
was not consistent with the perfect freedom of the country ; 
the Ballot was the only antidote against the taint which 



SPEECHES ON THE BALLOT. [37] 

poisoned the life-blood of the representative system. It 
might be rejected, but it would not be rejected long. 

The debate was enlivened by the brilliancy of Macaulay 
in support of the motion. He began with a long apology 
for open questions, as the Ballot was now made in the 
cabinet. He admitted that the Ballot would take from the 
voter some good, while it destroyed many bad motives. 
There was a time when he hoped that the evil of intimida- 
tion would yield to the force of public opinion and the 
progress of intelligence ; he had, however, been compelled to 
relinquish that view. The evil had increased within the last 
seven years — within the last three years ; and he attributed 
the increase in some measure to the Eeform Bill. In saying 
so, he was only charging the Eeform Bill with what accom- 
panied every measure of improvement ; the Eeformation in 
the Church, and the Eevolution both gave rise to new evils. 
The Eeform Bill had extended the suffrage to thousands who 
were open to intimidation ; and better be elected for Old 
Sarum than owe a seat to fear-extorted votes. All tyranny 
was bad, but the worst kind of tyranny was that which used 
the machinery of freedom. Intimidation was corruption in 
its worst and most loathsome form — it was corruption 
stripped of every blandishment and grace — of every savour- 
ing of hospitable bounty and good humour. He was opposed 
to the reconstruction of the Eeform Bill, but to make that 
Bill effectual they should not allow nomination to remain 
in an altered and more odious form. Lord John Eussell 
made a laboured reply to Macaulay, and was himself 
severely handled by Shell. Sir James Graham went into 
the vexed historical question, often brought up in the Ballot 
debates, as to what was the understanding of the original 
framers of the Eeform Bill on the subject of the Ballot. 
Sir Eobert Peel in a short speech lectured the cabinet on 
their doctrine of open questions. 

On a division, the Ayes were 216 ; Noes, 333. 



[38] CHAEACTEK AND WRITINGS. 



CHAPTEE III. 
MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. 

1833. 

Mr. Grote's maiden speech was delivered on the 22nd of 
February, in support of a motion to refer to the committee 
then sitting on Municipal Corporations, a petition from the 
Merchant Tailors' Company of the City of London. It had 
been denied that the City Companies were corporations in 
the same sense as the municipal corporations. Mr. Grote 
contended that as they were not companies in the commercial 
sense of the term, and as they passed regulations for par- 
ticular trades, they exercised powers belonging properly to a 
municipal corporation. 

More important was the occasion of his next speech, five 
days later, in opposition to the Irish Coercion Bill. In spite 
of his respect for the quarter whence the measure came, he 
could not approve of it. It contained some wise and tutelary 
provisions ; but as a whole it would not answer its end. He 
could not speak of it but as a most revolting measure. He 
had listened patiently to the catalogue of enormities detailed 
by the noble lord (Mthorp). This was nothing new to him ; 
the Irish had ever been a lawless people, a fact not sufficiently 
dwelt upon. They (the legislature) should strengthen the 
hands of justice under the existing tribunals.' The proposed 
courts-martial would not be impartial courts; and their 
mistakes would be on the side, not of mercy, but of severity. 
These courts-martial were held responsible only to higher 
courts-martial, which was no guarantee, for the condemnation 
of one military man by another would be prevented by the 
esprit cle corps among officers. He objected to the Bill on 
two distinct grounds. The first was subjecting Ireland to 



MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [39] 

tlie goyernment of military tribunals ; the next was the pro- 
hibition of public meetings, and the right to petition. " He 
was sure that they had not arrived yet at the period when 
the relations bet\yeen the governors and the governed in that 
country were so pure, and so free from suspicion, as to enable 
the people to dispense with all the bulwarks of the constitu- 
tion." There were abundance of grievances yet to redress in 
that country of long standing, and it would be wise as well 
as delicate in the Government to pause before they shut the 
door against all the public complaints from the people of 
Ireland. 

On the following day he presented a petition from a num- 
ber of persons called Separatists, who sought to be exempted, 
like the Quakers, from taking oaths. (This was afterwards 
done by Act 3 & 4 Will. IV., c. 82.) 

On the 7th of March he presented a petition from i^orwich, 
stating that the return of Lord Stormont and Sir James 
Scarlett had been effected by means of bribery and cor- 
ruption, and praying that a Parliamentary Commission might 
be sent down, fully and fairly to enquire into and expose the 
system. He supported the prayer of the petition ; but the 
Solicitor-General objected to it as irregular. 

On the 13th he presented a petition from Marylebone 
against the Irish Coercion Bill, and gave his cordial support 
to the prayer of the petition. 

On the 31st of May, he spoke on Lord Althorp's resolutions 
for a renewal of the Bank Charter. He concurred generally 
in the resolutions ; but, on the 1st of July, in the debate on 
the second resolution, which made the promissory notes of 
the Bank of England a legal tender (although always payable 
in gold at the Bank itself, or any of its branches), he avowed 
an entire change of opinion, on the ground that in the poor 
districts there would not be an adequate supply of specie ; 
there would, in fact, be a commission charged for gold over 
what would be demanded for notes. The clause would also 
hinder small depositors — men who had their thirty or forty 
pounds — from carrying gold to the country bank. He had a 



[40] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

farther distrust of the measure from its being adopted and 
praised by gentlemen who held certain opinions on the ques- 
tion of the currency, sincerely enough, he had no doubt, but 
in his view injurious if adopted. 

Lord Althorp followed, and declared that he had himself 
been much influenced by Mr. Grote's former opinions, given 
in evidence before the Committee on the Bank Charter, and 
could not concur in his new views. Mr. Clav thouo;ht that 
the manly and noble conduct of the honourable member for 
London, in thus frankly avowing what he now considered to 
be an error of opinion, was above all praise ; and, instead of de- 
tracting from his character for talent and judgment, would only 
increase his deservedly high reputation. On Lord Althorp's 
fourth resolution, fixing the allowance to the Bank of England 
for managing the public debt, Mr. Clay moved an amend- 
ment in favour of reduction. Mr. Grote spoke in favour of 
another amendment for postponing the resolution, and 
making further investigation before fixing the allowance, 
which he did not think too great. 

On the 19th of June, on the resumption of a debate on the 
claims of English subjects on the Danish Government, he 
presented a petition from claimants in the City of London ; 
and contended that the case was one of great injustice. 

On the 21st, in Committee on the Church Temporalities 
(Ireland) Bill, on clause 147 (application of monies arising 
from sale of perpetuities) being read, Mr. Secretary Stanley 
proposed the omission of the clause. A very excited debate 
followed. O'Connell indulged in his bitterest taunts. Dr. 
Lushington said he had never heard a discussion in which 
the decency of parliamentary language, or the courtesy of 
public life had been so much departed from. The question 
in dispute was the alienation of Church property to secular 
purposes. The clause involved this alienation in a small 
degree. At the same time the Government got out of the 
difficulty by maintaining that the funds alluded to were not 
Church property. Still, the clause was now surrendered. 
Mr. Grote spoke shortly, but with more than his accustomed 



MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [41] 

point and terseness. He did entertain an objection to the 
Bill in the first instance, because it "did not, in his opinion, 
go the length that people expected it would go towards 
rectifying that great ecclesiastical enornnity of Europe — the 
Irish Church." Still, knowing the difficulties the ministers 
would have to contend with in getting it passed, he felt ♦ 
anxious to support it ; but when he found that, defective as 
it was, it was to be robbed of one of its chiefest members, he 
felt bound to oppose the withdrawal of the clause. The 
supposition was that the withdrawal had a view to what 
might happen in the Lords ; but what worse could the Lords 
do than send the Bill back, and then they might consider 
the omission of the clause. His advice to ministers was, 
instead of offering a few crumbs of reform to the people, and 
afterwards endeavouring to pare down even those few, to give 
such measures as they might think just and necessary, with- 
out any reference to what might be the conduct of another 
assembly. 

Lord John Eussell " confessed he turned with gratification 
from the frothy declamation which had so lavishly been 
bestowed on the subject, to the calm, and as usual, rational 
arguments which had been addressed to the House by the 
honourable member for London." The gist of his speech 
was to avoid a contest with the Lords until there was a ques- 
tion of still greater importance to contend for ; " he was of 
opinion that this country could not stand a revolution once 
a-year." 

On the 2nd of July he presented a petition from the 
merchants of London, trading with Oporto, complaining of 
the losses undergone by them in the struggle existing for the 
last ten months in Portugal. 

On the 30th Mr. Eoebuck moved that the House would, 
with the smallest delay possible, consider the means of 
establishing a system of national education. Mr. Grote 
seconded the motion, in the belief that two things were per- 
fectly true ; the first, that the present system of education 
was defective: the other, that the defects could not be 



[42] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

remedied without the assistance of Government. He referred 
in terms of great commendation to Cousin's book on ' Educa- 
tion in France.' 

On the 7th of August, on the third reading of the Customs' 
Duties Bill, after commenting on the enormous duty on cur- 
rants — 44s. 4id, per cwt. — he moved its reduction to 28s. ; the 
motion was defeated by a small majority. 

On the 9th, on a clause in the Renewal of the Bank 
Charter, continuing the renewal for ten years, he urged that 
seven years would be a sufficiently long period. 

On the 10th he recommended that the variations in the 
Bank circulation should be published weekly in the Gazette. 



1834. 



The opening days of this session were troubled with tlie 
discussion of a charge made against Mr. Sheil, that while 
voting against the Irish Coercion Bill of last session, he had 
privately expressed himself to the effect, that Ministers ought 
to press the Bill, and that it is impossible to live in Ireland 
without it. An extraordinary personal altercation took place 
between Lord Althorp and Mr. Sheil ; and they were both 
ordered into the custody of the Serjeant-at-arms until they 
gave assurances that they would take no steps outside the 
House. Mr. O'Connell moved the appointment of a Com- 
mittee of Privileges to investigate the charge, which was 
carried by a large majority. Mr. Grote was made chairman 
of the committee. On the 12th of Februarv he rose in the 
House to move, by request of the committee, that Mr. 
O'Connell's name be now added to the committee ; he having, 
in his motion, declined to name himself. After some stick- 
ling, the motion was agreed to. On the 14th Mr. Grote 
brought up the report of the committee, which was a com- 
plete vindication of Mr. Sheil's character. 

On the 20th of February he presented a petition from the 
parishioners of AUhallows, Lombard Street, disapproving of 



.MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [43] 

the conduct of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, in pre- 
ferring to the incumbency of the parish a non-resident ; and 
took the opportunity of making some remarks on the neces- 
sity of an early measure of Church Reform. In a speech 
palliating the appointment, Sir E. Inglis acknowledged the 
calm and temperate manner in which Mr. Grote had discussed 
what persons, not of his temper and discretion, would have 
made an occasion to provoke other sentiments than he had 
roused. 

On the 18th of March he took part in a debate on the 
Tea Duties. 

On the 14th of April, in Committee of Supply, he objected 
strongly to the amount of the vote for the Consular Depart- 
ment, and also to the discrepancies of the salaries. The fol- 
lowing day, on a vote of £20,000 for education, he was of 
opinion that the Government ought to extend the vote. 

On the 30th he opposed the second reading of Sir A. 
Agnew's Bill for the Observance of tlie Sabbath. He con- 
sidered it nothing more or less than a sentence of imprison- 
ment upon the working classes of society upon the Sabbath. 
" Eeligion to be effective must be spontaneous and sincere." 

On the 9th of May, Lord Althorp moved the second 
reading of the Poor Laws Amendment Bill. Mr. Grote was 
an active supporter of the measure in all its stages. In the 
debate on the second reading, he spoke with intense fervour 
on the necessity of the change. He had perused with de- 
liberate attention all the Reports of the Commission of 
Inquiry. Even the vast and abusive expenditure under the 
present law was as dust in the balance compared with the 
evil effect on the character and comfort of the labouring 
classes. He was aware of the great jealousy expressed at 
the powers to be vested in the Commissioners; but the 
question was, did the urgency of the case require them? 
His concluding sentences are : — " Entertaining a strong and 
decided opinion on this subject, I have done my best to 
persuade the House to read this Bill a second time. I know 
that I have done this at no small risk of favour and popu- 



[44] CHARACTEE AND WRITINGS. 

larity to myself ; for I understand that a petition was this 
day presented from my own constituents, directed strongly 
against the passing of this Bill. Sir, it is not without the 
deepest regret and concern that I find myself opposed to 
constituents to whom I am attached by every tie, and to 
whom I owe the honourable station which I now occupy. 
But so strong is my conviction of the absolute necessity of 
some large remedial measure as an antidote to the over- 
whelming evil of pauperism — so firm is my belief of the 
necessity of some central supervising agency to secure the 
fulfilment of any salutary provisions which the legislature 
may prescribe — so strong is my conviction on these cardinal 
points, that if it were to cost me the certain sacrifice of my 
seat, I should feel bound to tell mv constituents that I dis- 
sented from them, and that I would do my best to promote 
the attainment of this necessary, and, in the main, valuable 
remedy. In doing so, I should feel with pain that I had 
decided contrary to the opinion of my constituents ; but I 
should also feel, that I had decided in unison with the best 
interests of my country." 

In Committee, he spoke frequently on the details. He 
opposed the concession of the Government to limit the 
appointment of the Commissioners to five years. On the 
bastardy clauses he complained that Lord Althorp was 
making concessions to the public feeling rather than to 
reason or argument. 

On the 27th of May, Mr. Ward brought forward his motion 
for reducing the revenues of the Irish Church. Mr. G-rote 
was to second the motion. Those who sought to identify 
the two Churches of England and Ireland would degrade 
the one church without elevating the other. There was only 
one case in Europe where the temporalities of the established 
church went, not to a majority, but to a small minority of 
the people, and that w^as Ireland. In France, under the 
bigoted reign of Charles X., the cost of religious worship 
to the State was less than one shilling a head; in Ireland 
it was one pound ten shillings a head. Some contended 



MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [45] 

that the State had no right to touch the property of the 
Irish Church, or to apply it to other than religious purposes. 
This might be maintained by a Koman-Catholic, but every 
Protestant must be aware that in the progress of the Ee- 
formation church property had been diverted to other pur- 
poses. If the legislature attempted to continue the Irish 
Church in its present magnitude, the legislature would share 
in its . unpopularity ; it was considered a grievance upheld 
only by the irresistible influence of English connexion. 
When the advocates of the repeal of the Union put forward 
the evils of the Irish Church establishment, no man replied. 

Although this speech was composed and appears in 
Hansard, it was not delivered (see " Life," p. 90.) 

On the 8th of July, he supported Mr. Ward's motion for 
taking authentic lists of the divisions of the House. The 
motion was carried ; and from that time commenced the 
recording of the names of those that vote in the divisions. 

On the 25th, on the Order of the Day for the House to 
resolve itself into a Committee of Ways and Means, Mr. 
Goulburn made an attack upon the Government for increas- 
ing offices, by Commissions and otherwise, and particularly 
instanced an office held by Macaulay. Mr. Orote defended 
the expenditure upon Commissions of Inquiry, but \Aith 
regard to the salary given to Mr. Macaulay, with all his 
admiration for that excellent and most gifted individual, he 
could not but consider it extravagant. 



1835. 



Sir Eobert Peel was now in office, and the opening of the 
Session was marked by an animated debate. In the Commons 
an Amendment on the Address was moved by Lord Morpeth, 
strongly expressing the desirableness of prosecuting measures 
of reform, and condemning the recent dissolution of Parlia- 
ment. Mr. Pemberton replied to the very vigorous attack 
of Lord Morpeth. Mr. Ewart spolce for the amendment. 



[46] CHAEACTER AND WRITINGS. 

Mr. Eichards made an apology for ministers, on" tlie ground 
that the late Government itself was not giving satisfaction to 
reformers ; among other illustrations, he quoted their recep- 
tion of the Ballot. Mr. Grote then rose. He said his reform 
principles conducted him to very different conclusions from 
the member who had just sat down. As a reformer, he could 
not consent to look for a ministry in the ranks of the party ever 
the most hostile to reform. If his present vote would have 
the effect of displacing the present Government, that would 
be an additional reason for giving it. Lord Grey's adminis- 
tration had been slow in making reforms, but that could not 
be said of Lord Melbourne's, seeing it had not been allowed 
that fair trial for which the advocates of the present Govern- 
ment were so clamorous. Great public excitement bad been 
created, which could be allayed only by the assurance, con- 
tained in the Amendment, that the cause of reform was not 
to suffer. The Royal Speech, if it had come from a ministry 
he confided in, would not have given him satisfaction, but 
coming from a ministry in which he had no confidence at 
all, was still more objectionable. Its defects would have 
justified a still stronger amendment. He could not forget 
their acts previous to 1830. The Government of Lord Grey 
was the first that had openly approved of and acted on the 
principles of Eeform ; it did not come up to his wishes; but 
however slow, it would never stand still. The mover of the 
address had spoken of a morbid desire for change; what he 
found was an ardent wish for improving our institutions. 
Whoever asserted that there was anything incompatible with 
law and government was guilty of a calumny upon the body 
of the people. Reformers had been taunted with want of 
unanimity, but they had quite enough of sense and reflection 
to pursue the stream of Reform peaceably and calmly, without 
even allowing the impediments that they might meet with 
to force them out of their channel, or to make them fret 
and foam with vexation. He thought the defence of the 
ministry by a reference to the King's prerogative, would soon 
lead the prerogative itself to be questioned. 



MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [47] 

The Amendment was carried bv 309 to 302. 

On the 10th of March, in a debate on the Malt Duties, 
Sir James Graham had made allusion to a change of mi- 
nistry, and said '' they had been told of, or rather threatened 
with, a Grote and Warburton Administration." Mr. Grote 
rose in consequence. He said a friend " had been pleased to 
connect his name with a possible ministry: he, however, 
regretted such a fancy had ever been started, inasmuch as 
such a situation was as much above his ambition, as it would 
be foreign to his taste, his pursuits, and his interests." More- 
over, on the present question, he dissented from the very 
persons that were to be coupled with him in the supposed 
ministry. He objected to the repeal of the Malt Duties, 
and considered Sir Robert Peel's arguments to be unanswer- 
able, and rejoiced that he had dispersed so many of the 
agricultural fallacies so often put forth in the House. 

The following night, Sir George Grey moved for a Com- 
mittee to enquire into the most effectual method to put a 
stop to bribery at elections. Mr. Grote expressed himself 
willing to go into the Committee with the fullest disposition 
to consider any remedy that might be proposed, apart from 
the Ballot, and trusted that if they were unsuccessful, they 
would follow the example of the member for Edinburgh, and 
get over their former scruples and objections to the Ballot. 
The Committee was appointed. 

On the 18th, Sir John Campbell moved the second reading 
of the Imprisonment for Debt Bill. The Bill abolished im- 
prisonment, except in the cases of fraud. Mr. Grote said 
the Bill was recommended both by policy and by humanity: 
and he was more convinced of this by the speech (hostile) 
of the President of the Board of Trade than by any other 
reasoning on the subject. He was better pleased that his 
views should be sustained by the failure of his opponent's 
arguments, than by the success of his own. 

On the 27th of May, Mr. Shaw presented several petitions 
expressing, in somewhat violent language, alarm and dismay 
at the proposed measure respecting the Irish Church. 



[48] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

Various members commented upon the language of the 
petitions. Mr. Grote would make only one observation on 
the subject. Much had often been said as to the ferocious 
language of the Radicals and the working classes : but no 
petition coming from these ever abounded in such calumnious 
assertions, and imputation of the w^orst motives as the 
petition dow coming from the Conservatives of South Lanca- 
shire, and likewise the petition from Durham. It was right 
that the same character should be applied to violent lan- 
guage, whether it came from the ultra-Pious or the ultra- 
Radical. 

On the 15th of June, the Municipal Corporation Bill was 
unanimously read a second time. Mr. Grote, commenting 
upon a speech of Lord Stanley's, objected to the large 
number of councillors allowed by the Bill ; and advocated 
the removability of charitable trustees, and also of the 
recorder. He also protested against a proposal for retaining 
the franchise of the freemen. Both on this occasion, and 
afterwards in Committee, he opposed the qualification of a 
three years' occupancy. 

On the 26th of June, he presented a petition from Great 
Yarmouth, praying for the Ballot, in consequence of the 
drunkenness, riot and corruption at the last election there. 
He should have wished the petition referred to a Select 
Committee, but he was personally overcharged with Com- 
mittee business, and could not attend to it. 

On the 1st of July, in Committee on the Municipal 
Corporation Bill, on clause 23, providing that one-third of 
the Town Councils should go out of office annually, an 
amendment was moved by Mr. Charles Buller, to the effect 
that the whole be elected annually. Mr. Grote supported 
the principle of annual election, and from the experience 
of the City of London, refuted the objection that it would 
cause a continual influx of new and inexperienced men. The 
same evening he moved, in a short speech, the introduction 
of the Ballot at Municipal Elections ; but did not press the 
motion to a vote. 



MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [49] 

On the 31st of August, there came on for consideration 
the Lords' Amendments to the Municipal Corporations Bill. 
Considerable public excitement had been aroused by these 
amendments. Lord John Russell stated what points the 
Government would, and what they would not, surrender. 
Sir Eobert Peel followed and assisted in compromising the 
differences. Mr. Hume objected to the amount of the con- 
cessions. Mr. Grote still more emphatically. Whatever he 
might think of the proceedings of the House of Lords in 
other respects, he was bound to acknowledge that they had 
resolutely adhered to their independent character; and it 
would not be amiss if the Commons would do the same. It 
would ill become the dignity of that House — the assembled 
representatives of the people of Eogland — to yield important 
principles merely for the purpose of conciliating the other 
House of Parliament. When the people of England were 
fully and justly represented in that House, there ought to 
be no other power in the State which should be able to stand 
against them. He complained that Lord John Russell, in 
one or two of his concessions, had gone the length of vindi- 
cating the Lords' amendments on their merits. He would 
rather wait for a better Bill than barter away the best 
principles of the measure for the purpose of getting the 
immediate consent of the other House. 

Both on that occasion and next night, he objected strongly 
to the test of pecuniary qualification, which Lord John 
Russell agreed to retain with a modification suggested by 
Sir Robert Peel. He had come down to the House with the 
full intention of dividing upon this question, but had been 
induced, in consequence of the observations he had heard, to 
alter his purpose. Still he was anxious to give his reasons, 
namely, his repugnance to the principle of qualification, and 
his sense that the concession was too great. He thought the 
tone of the present debate was calculated to have no other 
effect than to give the Lords a power of legislating over this 
House, and to make the country believe that this House 
would not stand by any great principle which it had en- 

e 



[50] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

deavoured to establish. He could not see what the country 
had gained by the Reform Bill, which had in a great degree 
put an end to the system of filling the House with nomi- 
nees of the Lords, if the other House was to exercise 
its power in another way, by enabling minorities of the 
Commons to triumph over decided majorities of the repre- 
sentatives of the people. 



1836. 



On the 20th of April, a keen discussion arose as to 
members of the House voting on Private Bills wherein they 
had a pecuniary interest. Mr. Grote agreed in the prin- 
ciple, but did not see how it could be fully carried out. The 
inference that he would draw was that Committees of that 
House were not fit tribunals for deciding private business. 

The same night, in presenting a petition from sixty 
merchants of the City of London, complaining of the ill 
efiects, on our commerce with Turkey, of the overbearing 
interference of Eussia, — he deprecated any course that would 
involve this country in a war with Russia. It had of late 
become the custom to use very unmeasured language as to 
the aggressions of Russia, respecting which, whatever opinion 
he might entertain as a private individual, he considered 
unwise and impolitic when expressed in the House. 

On the 22nd, a motion was made to inculpate Mr. 
O'Connell for his share in making a corrupt bargain at the 
Carlow election, notwithstanding that a Select Committee 
had sat upon the transaction and given in a Report in an 
opposite sense. It was a purely party move. Mr. Grote 
stood upon the decision of the Committee, as being cool and 
impartial, whereas the present motion had the character of 
political hostility to O'Connell. It was somewhat remark- 
able that hon. gentlemen opposite, who were now so anxious 
to preserve the parity of election, had taken a very different 
course last year when the York and Great Yarmouth cases 



MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [51] 

were under discussion. The House on that occasion was 
content with pronouncing a slight censure on the parties 
implicated ; but if the hon. members on that (the Ministerial) 
side of the House had insisted on dragging those men up 
again, would it not have been denounced as an act of the 
grossest partiality, emanating from a low spiteful feeling of 
personal hostility ? 

On the 29th, he presented a petition for the equalisation 
of the duty on East and West India sugars ; and thought 
that they were called by every reason of justice, fairness and 
policy to abolish the discriminating duty in favour of the 
West Indies. 

On the 9th of June, the House had to consider the Lords' 
Amendments to the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Bill ; 
the debate lasting two nights. Lord John Eussell, on the 
part of the Government, took a more decided tone on this 
occasion than in the case of the English bill ; but yet pro- 
posed certain concessions. Mr. Grote spoke as usual shortly, 
but with increased emphasis on the hostile attitude of the 
Lords. He would have preferred that the Lords' Amend- 
ments should have been at once rejected, unless they had 
found any one that they could in their consciences approve. 
If ever there was a Bill, on which the House should look to its 
own dignity, it was the one now before them, for it had been 
dealt with by the other House in a manner in which no Bill 
had ever before been treated. The representatives of the 
people might have been spared the pain of making con- 
cessions to those who had declined, he might almost say 
exultingly declined, to make anything like concessions to 
them. He did not wish to speak lightly of a collision 
between the two Houses of Parliament ; but let the collision 
come when it might, it never would arise on a more noble 
or a more natural object than the present. The fact that 
they must meet with the same spirit of opposition from their 
Lordships on all important measures, rendered him less 
solicitous than he might otherwise have been for the settle- 
ment of the difference between the two Houses on this 

e2 



[52] CHAEACTER AND WRITINGS, 

particular subject. When he 'saw the House of Commons 
perpetually considering upon all measures of reform, not 
how much they ought in justice to give, but how much the 
Lords would be disposed to grant, he thought that the time 
was come when they ought to inform their constituents of 
that melancholy truth, and let them decide whether they 
would be governed on the principles avowed by the House 
of Lords, or on those acted on by the House of Commons. 

On the 16th of July, in Committee on the Stamp Duties 
Bill, he strongly trusted the time would soon arrive when the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer would propose the abolition of 
the penny duty, and thereby remove every obstacle to the 
diffusion of knowledge throughout the country. 

On the 25th the Established Churcli Bill was read a third 
time. In the debate 3Ir. Grote protested against the allow- 
ances to the bishops. The very lowest salary granted by 
the bill he held sufficient for the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
instead of 15,000Z. a year as proposed. Why, was it possible 
to conceive any set of duties which could be more easily or 
tranquilly performed, or which were more exempt from all 
those difficulties that required labour, assiduity and talent 
to surmount them, than those allotted to the Archbishop of 
Canterbury? It was impossible not to draw a comparison 
between those incomes and the miserable stipends of the 
working clergy. It was said lOOZ. or 150?. a year was enough 
for a curate, yet the Archbishop of Canterbury was not in 
anywise the superior of the humbler individuals so remu- 
nerated. 

1837. 

In April this year came up the Canada Eesolutions, on 
which Mr. Grote spoke repeatedly in opposition to the 
Government. His first and longest speech was on the 21st, 
in answer to Sir Eobert Peel's criticism of ]\Ii\ Eoebuck's 
proposal that the Upper House of Assembly should be merely 
advisers to the 2:overnor and not a co-ordinate branch of the 



MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [53] 

legislature. He considered that the exercise of a veto upon 
the popular assembly by such a council as was proposed was 
infinitely more obnoxious than the veto of the governor, who 
had the prestige of a representative of the power and majesty 
of the king. On the bringing up of the Report of the Reso- 
lutions on the 28th, he declared his continued regret at the 
decision of the House regarding them. 

On the 10th of May he supported a bill for abolishing the 
qualification arising out of the payment of rates and taxes, 
required by the Reform Act for borough, but not for county 
voters. 

On the 22nd, in Committee on the Bill for abolishing the 
Punishment of Death in the Burning or Destroying Build- 
ings and Ships, he urged that if the punishment of death was 
to be retained, it would be better that it should be inflicted 
in private, as public executions were never attended with 
beneficial results. 

The death of the king having led to a dissolution of Par- 
liament on the 17th of Julv, the Houses reassembled on the 
15th of November. On the 20th was moved the address to 
the Queen's Speech. On that night, and on the following, 
Lord John Russell gave answers to the complaints made by 
the advanced liberals, that the Government was backward in 
measures of further reform. Mr. Grote gave the noble lord 
credit for his candour, but could not award him any higher 
commendation. He complained that the noble lord had 
regarded the Ballot as inseparable from the two other ques- 
tions of extension of the suffrage and repeal of the Septennial 
Act. He was favourable to the two last measures, but would 
bring forward the Ballot on its own independent merits. If 
such arguments as were now used by the noble lord had been 
allowed to prevail on a former occasion, the Reform Bill 
itself would never have passed. He felt deeply sorry for the 
declarations just made by the noble lord; they would pro- 
duce a greater and much more painful sensation than the 
Duke of Wellington's celebrated declaration against the 
Reform Bill. 



[54] CHAEACTER AND WRITINGS. 

On the 4tli of December, on going into Committee upon 
the Municipal Officers' Declaration Bill, framed for the relief 
of Quakers and Moravians, Mr. Grote moved that the bill 
be extended to all classes of Her Majesty's subjects. The 
extension was meant for the Jews. The amendment was 
lost by a majority of 16. 

On the 13th of December, in a speech of great delicacy 
and tact, he took exception to a proposal for granting an 
addition of 8000?. a year to the income of the Duchess of 
Kent. He was one of those who took the strongest view of 
the duty of economising the public money. He often, there- 
fore, felt bound to resist the claims made on the public purse 
by those in the middle station, and in that more humble 
than it. He could not take that course with satisfaction to 
his own feelings and conscience, unless he was prepared to 
exercise the same scrutinising investigation into the claims 
of those who filled an exalted station. 

On the 15th the Civil List had to be voted. Mr. Hume 
moved the reduction of the vote to Her Majesty (385,000Z.) 
by 50,000Z. Mr. Grrote would most willingly support every- 
thino* that could add not only to the comfort and elegance, 
but also to the dignity and splendour of the Sovereign ; yet 
he was of opinion that the best friends to the respectability 
of the Crown were those who were most anxious that it should 
not appear in the light of an odious and unnecessary burden 
on the shoulders of the people. 

On the 19th he made a motion to remove from the Civil 
List the sum allotted to pensions. He argued against those 
pensions in a speech of some length. His objections were 
that no adequate pubKc advantage accrued from the fund ; 
that it involved a double and conflicting reference to the 
reward of merit and the relief of distress ; that in this last 
application it was in contradiction to the strict principle 
involved in the Poor Law Amendment Act ; and that it was 
a means of patronage to the Government of the day. 

On the 22nd, a debate was brought in by Mr. Leader on 
the affairs of Canada, now in a state of rebellion. Mr. Grote 



MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [55] 

traced the present calamities to last year's resolutions: he 
would not have these resolutions on his conscience for any- 
thing that could be offered him. He regretted to find the 
confidence prevailing on both sides of the House, that the 
expression of a strong opinion from a large majority in 
the British Parliament, was alone necessary to put down at 
once all idea of resistance in the minds of the people of 
Canada. Many had said that there was no analogy between 
the present state of Canada and that of the provinces of the 
United States in 1774. He contended that the grievances 
in both cases were the same, the principal being the right of 
the British Government to take the people's money. He 
had listened with surprise to the member for Newark 
(Mr. Gladstone) when he said it was not a mere speculative 
grievance, or grievance of principle, but a series of pro- 
tracted oppressions, which had led the United States of 
America to shake off the yoke of Britain. That statement 
was entirely inaccurate. The British Legislature had assumed 
over Canada, as it had done over the United States, a right 
of control, which however the noble lord (Lord John Eussell) 
might regard it, he was sure would have been considered by 
the Lord Eussell of former days, and by Algernon Sydney, 
as equal to a sentence of slavery. 



1838. 



Canada was the first subject of this session. 

On the 16th of January, Lord John Eussell moved an 
Address to the Queen, expressing regret at the Canadian re- 
bellion, and assuring Her Majesty " that while this House is 
ever ready to afford relief to real grievances, we are fully 
determined to support the efforts of Her Majesty for the sup- 
pression of revolt and the restoration of tranquillity." 

Mr. Grote used very strong language in disapproving of 
the Government for the absence of all conciliating measures, 
while bent upon the employment of force to suppress the 



[56] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

rebellion. He imfavourably criticised the whole policy of 
the Home Government in the treatment of the colony. He 
could see no benefit from severity and coercion, whilst it 
must produce the great evil of continuing in the minds of the 
inhabitants a feeling of despair that justice would be done to 
their country. 

Next day, he presented and supported a petition from Mr. 
Eoebuck, praying that he might be heard at the bar in the 
defence of the House of Assembly of Lower Canada, and in 
opposition to the measure of '^ impolicy and injustice " which 
Government meant to introduce with regard to that country. 
The petition was ordered to be printed. 

On the 22nd, he formally proposed " that John Arthur 
Eoebuck, Esq., be heard at the bar of the House, as the agent 
of the Assembly of Lower Canada, against the Canada Bill, 
on the second reading- thereof." As the Bill meant to sus- 
pend the constitution of the colony, which was, in fact, a 
suspension of the House of Assembly, it was a matter of 
justice to give the agent of that body an opportunity of de- 
fending the body at the bar of the House. 

Mr. Gladstone followed, and while agreeing that it would 
be most desirable to hear Mr. Roebuck, protested against 
recognising him as '' the agent of the House of Assembly." 

After speeches by Lord John Russell, Lord Stanley, and 
others, on the technical form of the proposal, the House de- 
cided in favour of hearing Roebuck. Accordingly, on the 
Order of the Day for the second reading of the Lower Canada 
Government Bill, he advanced to the bar, and addressed the 
House. On his retiring, the debate commenced on a motion 
that the House go into committee on the Bill. On the 
second night of the debate (23rd of January) Mr. Grote 
spoke. He concurred in the propriety of sending out Lord 
Durham as Governor of Canada ; and he could also express 
his satisfaction at the announcement of the intention of the 
Government to exercise clemency towards those who had 
been engaged in the late revolt. He complained, however, 
that the chances of Lord Durham's success were very much 



MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES, [57] 

spoiled by the suspension of the Assembly. He had before 
expressed an opinion, which was not very favourably received 
in the House, but which he, nevertheless, sincerely enter- 
tained, that a separation between the colony and the mother- 
country was the most desirable thing that could happen, 
both for the mother-country and for the colony. Already 
there was the commencement of a feeling of sympathy be- 
tween the Canadas and the people of the United States. If 
they would have colonial possessions such as Canada, they 
had this difficult problem to solve — they had to maintain the 
supremacy of this country, and at the same time to give 
satisfaction to the Canadian people. It was usual to make 
severe remarks on the speeches of what is called the Radical 
party in the House (of Commons), and to speak contemptu- 
ously of the smallness of their numbers, although he was 
rather surprised, if the Radical party were really so small 
and contemptible, that honourable members should find so 
much in their speeches worthy of comment; but he must 
say, that of the speeches in the House that were likely to 
alienate tbe feelings of the colonists, it was not those that 
spoke for thejn, but those that spoke against them, which 
w^ere more likely to produce such a result. 

On the 29th, there was a debate on the third reading of 
the Canada Bill. Mr. Grote spoke with the same emphasis 
as before. He saw in the Bill no remedy proposed for any of 
the evils that now constituted the grievances of the Canadians, 
while he saw in it one great grievance added to those already 
existing, of which, even those that had hitherto abstained 
from taking part in these matters must feel the burden. The 
representation of the people in Canada would now be a name 
and a shadow. In answer to the allegation that the consti- 
tution had become unworkable, he blamed the Executive 
Government for not using its prerogative in the appointment 
of members such as would be acceptable to the majority of 
the people. They might foresee the difficulties of suspending 
an existing constitution, when they heard the proposition of 
a supporter of the Government to saddle the colony with an 



[58] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

Established Church. The same reasons that led him to wish 
to improve the representative institutions in this country, 
which imperfectly and unfaithfully represented the people, 
induced him to be strenuous in preserving the Canadian 
Assembly, which really did represent the people. He 
doubted and mistrusted the power of the Government to 
restore the Assembly, and he did not feel confident that they 
wished it; the more so, when he observed that the Govern- 
ment had to conciliate Sir Robert Peel, and to obtain his 
support, in whatever new constitution might be given to 
Canada. 

On the 25th of April Mr. Serjeant Talfourd moved the 
second reading of his Copyright Bill, which was to extend 
the term of copyright to sixty years. Mr. Grote opposed the 
measure as replete with mischief to the public, doubtful in 
its pecuniary results as to the authors themselves, and calcu- 
lated to rob those authors of what, he was persuaded, they 
set a greater value upon than any pecuniary gain — a wide 
and enduring circle of literary and intrinsic admiration. 

On the 19th of July, on a proposition of Lord John Eussell 
for an additional advance of money to the relief of the 
owners of compositions for tithes in Ireland, he offered his 
strenuous resistance, confessing, however, that after the sur- 
render of the appropriation clause, he had ceased to take any 
interest in the Tithe Bill. At the same time, when he found 
that a large sum of money was to be paid out of the pockets 
of the people of England, he was bound to declare that no 
proposition had ever been submitted to the House since he 
became a member to which he felt a more unqualified oppo- 
sition. Lord John Eussell replied in the usual strain, that 
the Government could not, in their circumstances, with the 
hostility they encountered both in the Commons and in the 
Lords, do more than they had done. 

On the 26th, the Irish Tithe Bill was read a third time. 
The debate was stormy. Mr. Grote excelled himself in the 
energy of his denunciation of the measure. The Bill would 
only raise increased odium to the existing constitution of 



MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [59] 

the Irish Church. Now he had been as unreserved as any 
man in the expression of his abhorrence of the monstrous 
principle, and the equally monstrous effects of that esta- 
blishment, but he would not for that reason support a Bill 
which he conscientiously objected to. If any settlement of 
the Irish Church question were proposed, founded on just 
principles, and likely to be final, he would not object to a 
grant for closing a wound that had so long been bleeding. 

On the 15th of August, on the Order of the Day for the 
third reading of the Canada Government Declaratory and 
Indemnity Bill, he declared his satisfaction at being one of 
the inconsiderable minority that had opposed the Act for 
the temporary government of Lower Canada, out of which 
had arisen the necessity for this Bill. He could not recon- 
cile the Bill with the encomiums passed by its supporters 
on Lord Durham; if the noble lord deserved those en- 
comiums, that Bill was not necessary ; and if he had been 
guilty of illegal acts, the encomiums could not be right. 



1839. 



Parliament was opened on the 5th of February, but Mr. 
Grote's name does not appear in the debates, till the 5th of 
March. On that day he supports Mr. Milner Gibson, in 
urging Lord Palmerston to counteract the Eussian influence 
that had been brought to bear on Sweden against making 
Slito a free port. 

On the 12th of March, Mr. Villiers brought on a motion 
on the Corn Laws, which led to a five nights' debate. On 
the second night, Mr. Grote supported the motion in a 
speech occupying ten pages of Hansard. His characteristics 
as a debater — the mastery and handling of facts, the argu- 
mentative vigour and point, the telling retort of the allega- 
tions on the other side — are fully displayed on this occasion. 
But in a subject so completely thrashed out, it is not 
advisable to occupy space with an analysis of the speech. 



[60] CHAEACTEE AND WETTINGS. 

On tlie IQth, there was a debate, introduced by Lord 
Sandon, on the French blockade of the Mexican ports. Mr. 
Grote took part, and after unfavourably criticising the 
French proceeding, he found fault with Lord Palmerston for 
the tardiness of his interference. 

On the 21st, Mr. Hume made a motion in favour of House- 
hold Suffrage, and prefaced it by an elaborate speech. Lord 
John Eussell followed Mr. Hume, and was followed by Mr. 
Grote. The noble lord, he said, had dwelt very much on 
the mischiefs of the future changes, and the danger of un- 
settling the principles of the Reform Act ; and he must say 
that the noble lord had borro^ved manv of his observations 
from the speeches made by the opponents of his own Bill in 
1831 and 1832. He did not think the noble lord w^ould 
carry the public with him by simply telling them that they 
had got the Eeform Bill, and must be content to take it for 
better or for worse. He could not consent to treat the 
Eeform Act as a kind of canon of Scripture, which was to 
have notluDg added and nothing taken away. He saw no 
valid reason for withholding the elective suffrage from any 
man, unless it could be proved, or a strong presumption 
could be raised, that he was unfit to exercise it ; that was 
the view of representative government in every nation that 
possessed one. The householders under £10 were men 
labouring assiduously every day, discharging faithfully all 
the obligations of private life, having the greatest possible 
interest in the inviolability of the laws that ensured the 
stability of property and secured the earnings of industry. 
Instead of having the interest imputed to them by the noble 
lord of defrauding the public creditor, the Avorking classes 
would lend no approbation or acceptance to a measure so 
injurious to themselves. 

On the 15th of April, in consequence of Lord Eoden's 
motion carried in the House of Lords to appoint a Select 
Committee to enquire into the state of Ireland, Lord John 
Eussell, in a very long speech, asked the House to express 
approval of the Irish administration of the Government. 



MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [61] 

On the third night of the debate that followed, Mr. Grote 
spoke shortly. He said that if the question now at issue 
were simply the conduct of the Irish executive under the 
Marquis of Normanby, he should have no hesitation in giving 
his vote in favour of the resolution. He must, however, 
guard himself against being supposed to go beyond the 
letter of the resolution, or to express confidence in Lord 
Melbourne's Government generally. The Irish executive 
administration is in truth almost the only remnant of 
Liberalism which now distinguishes ministers from the 
gentlemen opposite ; and for this reason it has been most 
abundantly attacked. What is the doctrine of finality so 
often preached from the Treasury bench, but the Con- 
servative principle announced in all its plenitude and in all 
its vigour ? For the first time in modern English history, 
we have neither a Liberal Ministry nor a Libera] Oppo- 
sition. 

On the 3rd of May, Lord John Kussell moved that the 
House go into Committee on the Jamaica Bill, by which it 
was proposed to suspend for a time the Legislative Assembly. 
Mr. Grote, as might have been expected, strongly opposed 
the Bill, both on the score of justice and on the score of 
wisdom. The smallness of the ministerial majority (5), led 
to the resignation of Ministers, and to Sir Eobert Peel's 
attempt to form a Government, which was frustrated by the 
Queen's refusing to part with her ladies of the bedchamber. 

On the 8th of July, Mr. Hume moved for a Committee 
on the whole history and constitution of the Bank of 
England. Mr. Grote approved of an enquiry, but con- 
sidered it too wide in its scope to be undertaken at so late 
a period of the session. 



1840. 

During this session, Mr. Grote spoke but seldom. 

On the 1st of April, he took part in the three days' debate 



[62] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

on the Corn Laws, raised on a motion by Mr. Charles 
Villiers. 

On the 15th of May, in the debate on the Budget, he 
urged the removal of the stamp duty on policies of marine 
iDsurance. 

The only other speech was with reference to a motion by 
Lord Althorp (10th of March) for a Committee to enquire 
into the effects produced by the note-issuing banking esta- 
blishments. Mr. Grote was favourable to the appointment 
of the Committee, and mentioned the points that he thought 
it should take up, and also those that he thought it should 
avoid. 



1841. 

In the debate on the Address, on the 26th of January, 
Mr. Grote made a noted speech on the Syrian question. He 
could not forget that we have been exerting our force against 
persons with whom we have not the slenderest grounds of 
quarrel : neither Mehemet Ali nor his supporters, nor any 
other person in Syria, has done the least injury to English 
men or to English interests : nay, we have been gainers by 
the government of the Pasha in Syria. We are told the 
expedition was undertaken for maintaining the integrity of 
the Ottoman empire, under a treaty of July, 1839. Setting 
aside the French opposition to the treaty, and our dangers 
arising therefrom, he disputed the wisdom of the guarantee. 
He asked whether we have fully viewed the extent of the 
consequences of this guarantee. It was often said that we 
should interfere in Turkey, to prevent Eussia from inter- 
fering. If the only method of excluding the Emperor 
Nicholas from Constantinople is to keep constantly ahead 
of him in devoted offers to the Sultan, our chance is but 
slender. The real security is the direct terror of our arms. 
But as to our Syrian expedition, Eussia is herself the grand 
projector of the enterprise. We are consulting the very 



MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [63] 

party whom we suspect of entertaining thievish designs as to 
the best means of locking up and preserving our treasure. 
We have been hurried to the verge of an European war. 
The rupture between England and France is a signal 
calamity for both. The initial cause of so fatal a change — 
the tropical point from which the sun of peace began to 
avert his cheering rays from the latitude of Europe, is to be 
found in the treaty of last July, and in our Syrian expe- 
dition which followed it. The Foreign Secretary has cured, 
or professes to have cured, a distemper in the extremities of 
the Continent ; but the medicine has driven the distemper 
into the heart and vitals. If the noble lord has accom- 
plished a new settlement of the Ottoman empire, he has at 
the same time forcibly abrogated a pre-existing settlement, 
to which he himself had assented. That we should under- 
take to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman empire, both 
against foreign invaders and against itself and its own 
internal causes of disruption, he must record his deliberate 
protest, as well as against our recent embodiment of the 
principle in the Syrian expedition. If, in respect to our 
internal affairs, we are destined to obtain no farther progress; 
if the cold shadows of finality have at length closed in 
around us, and intercepted all visions of a brighter future ; 
if the glowing hopes once associated with a Reform Ministry 
and the reformed Parliament have perished like an exploded 
bubble, — at least in regard to our foreign affairs, let us 
preserve from shipwreck that which is the first of all 
blessings and necessities ; that which was bequeathed to us 
by the ante-Reform Ministry and the unreformed Parliament 
— I mean peace and accord with the leading nations of 
Europe, but especially with our nearest and greatest neigh- 
bour, France. 

On the 15th of March, he strongly supported a motion 
by Lord John Russell, for a loan to the colony of South 
Australia, to rescue it from pressing financial difficulties. 
He had been one of the original supporters of the plan for 
forming the colony, and although he had no pecuniary in- 



[64] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

terest in it, lie considered, in opposition to many members, 
that the colony had not been a failure. 

In the discussions connected with the Poor Law Amend- 
ment Bill, Mr. Grote took an active part. He uniformly 
defended the principles of the Bill, and supported its most 
stringent provisions ; in Committee he suggested a number 
of amendments. In replying to Mr. Duncombe's attacks on 
the Commissioners, he remarked, that he had supported the 
Bill of 1834, in opposition to his own constituency ; but he 
had now the satisfaction of knowins: that in the Citv of 
London the law was favourably regarded by the great body 
of the ratepayers. 

On the 25th of March (and again on the 22nd of April) 
he brought forward a series of resolutions relative to New 
South Wales. The resolutions were grounded on the com- 
plaint that our Government had thrown upon the colony the 
whole burden of the gaols and police, rendered necessary for 
the convicts sent out from this country, and had appropri- 
ated for that purpose the money arising from the land and 
emigration fund. He proposed that the charge should be 
in some way apportioned between the colony and the mother- 
country. A considerable debate ensued, but the motion was 
negatived by 54 to 10. 

His final effort in Parliament was in the great Sugar 
Duties debate on the 11th of May of this year. He put 
forth all his argumentative power on this occasion. At the 
commencement he descanted on Free Trade generally, and 
forcibly urged the mischiefs of protection in corn ; the alter- 
nate hot and cold fits of the corn-trade must be regarded by 
every one as a serious evil. Applying himself to the Sugar 
question, he took up the protectionist's favourite argument 
from the encouragement of slavery, and turned it over on 
every side. His own abhorrence of slavery is expressed in 
terms of unmistakeable sincerity ; while he exposes all the 
subterfuges of protection in claiming to discourage the slave- 
labour of Brazil and Cuba. As regards our home population, 
he did not wish to draw pictures of distress, or to move the 



MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES. [65] 

feelings of the House by describing the circumstances of 
those whose condition is the least comfortable. He never 
thought that a just or deliberate judgment upon any contro- 
verted question could be promoted by such a mode of treat- 
ing it. It was enough for his argument to state the plain 
matter of fact, that there are millions of persons in these 
realms to whom the difference in the price of sugar is most 
sensibly felt in their morning and evening meals. 



/ 



[66] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 



CHAPTEK IV. 

' THE HISTORY OF GREECE.' 

The actual composition of tlie * History of Greece '— such 
as it appeared in a published form in 1846 — was commenced 
in 1842. 

The preparation for the work may be shortly summed up 
thus : — 

First, in the reading, re-reading, and cogitation of the 
original sources and authorities, together with the study of 
the commentators, critics, and interpreters of the facts. For 
many years had he pondered the authors of classical Greece ; 
his interest not being limited to historical narrative, but 
extending to the literature for its own sake, and still more 
to the philosophy for its owm sake. His desire from the 
beginning was to realise not merely the events, but also the 
manners, habits, modes of life, and institutions, private as 
well as public. On all these matters he had already 
composed methodical and, as far as possible, exhaustive 
sketches. 

He had also systematically gone through a wide course of 
reading of the manners, habits, customs, institutions, and 
peculiarities of all other recorded nations, especially at the 
earlier stages of civilization. In his commonplace books 
and references he had a very great collection of such facts, 
and the ' History ' itself is strewn with illustrative allusions 
from that source. Of late years, still greater attention 
has been paid to this region of historical wealth ; and the 
available material has been considerably augmented; while 
novel inferences have been drawn from the experience thus 
brouo'ht to view. 

Mr. Grote possessed that essential quality of a historian — 



THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [67] 

the historical or narrative interest. In school days he 
devoured novels ; in later life the place of these was taken 
by histories and biographies relating to every nation and 
time. He felt and avowed the still more peculiar interest in 
the process of growth or evolution, whether in political insti- 
tutions, in literature, or in philosophy and science. The 
historical taste was thus with him a very wide and mixed 
susceptibility, and his narrative compositions became corre- 
spondingly varied in their interest. 

His earnest devotion to mental science, in all depart- 
ments — psychology, ethics, metaphysics, and logic — had 
no small share in the characteristic excellencies of liis 
historical compositions. Very few metaphysicians have 
become historians on the great scale ; the most conspicuous 
examples are Hume and James Mill. To these authors 
has always been attributed, among other merits, a peculiar 
subtlety in the dissection of motives and the exhibition 
of character. Metaphysical superiority is the cause (or, 
at all events, the evidence) of one great quality of the 
historian — the analytic aptitude or faculty. Science and 
analysis are nearly convertible terms. The chain of cause 
and effect in phenomena or events is enveloped and en- 
tangled in a mass of irrelevant or unconcerned accompani- 
ments. The scientific explanation of a fact is the separating 
of the essential from the casual antecedents ; an effort very 
severe and uncongenial to the untutored mind, being an- 
tagonistic to our habits and to many of our strongest 
feelings, which are mainly gratified by tacts in the lump or 
the undissected concrete. There is a favourite rhetorical 
comparison of history to the course of a noble river; the 
poet exhibits the river in the scenic grandeur of its totality ; 
bat if we wish to explain scientifically its different aspects — 
the volume of its waters, the speed of its current, its sedi- 
ment, its saline constituents, and its temperature — we must 
perform an operation repugnant to the natural mind; we 
must resolve the imposing aggregate into the abstractions 
of magnitude, gravity, force, solubility, and make a like 

/2 



[68] CHARAOTEH AND WRITINGS. 

analysis of the rocks and soil in its bed and on its banks. 
This analysis is not indeed the consummation of scientific 
discovery, but it is the indispensable preparation ; the 
deeper, the correcter the analysis, the greater the chances 
of a profound and just explanation of the phenomena. The 
philosophical historian of the French Revolution has to 
disentano^le, in the antecedent history and condition of 
France, the productive from the unproductive circumstances 
— performing a conjoint operation of analysis and proof, for 
which, apart from other qualifications, few historians have 
had the requisite scientific steadiness. Moreover, the final 
terms of a historical analysis are facts and laws of the human 
mind ; in these, therefore, all historical explanation must 
centre ; and he that adds, to the ample experience of an 
observing man of the world, the precise handling of the 
psychologist, must be, of all others, the best fitted for the 
highest part of the historian's duties. 

Had Mr. Grote written only the * History,' a lengthened 
discourse might have been required to show that he was in 
no mean degree an accomplished and original psychologist 
and logician. The proofs might have been conclusively 
drawn from the ^ History,' but they would have been mostly 
inferential and indirect. In regard to psychology, or the 
science of mind strictly viewed, we could point to his studies 
on the influence of the feeliQo:s in matters of truth and false- 
hood, which studies gave the master-key to the legendary or 
mythical ingredients of the Grecian story. The corruption 
of the intellect by the emotions and passions was one of his 
earliest and most strongly iterated themes. 

Under logic proper we should naturally have to advert 
to his theory and standard of evidence, which was up to the 
severest demands of historical accuracy. This high standard, 
however, had various determining motives. He notices, 
in the preface, the growing strictness of historians in their 
exaction of evidence, and quotes individual instances. 
Special to himself was a severe regard to truth, as opposed 
alike to the false and to the vague. There can be nothing 



THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [69] 

deserving of the name of trutli without preciseness in the 
use of leading terms, and this condition is never lost sight 
of in Grote's writings. His early logical training bore this 
fruit; and at a later period he entered with avidity into 
the principles and methods of inductive evidence as ela- 
borated in the ' Logic ' of John Stuart Mill. 

His career as an English politician and member of Par- 
liament, during a great democratic struggle, was necessarily 
of the greatest value for understanding the free governments 
of antiquity. This has often been remarked upon as a point 
in his favour when compared with the erudite German 
professors, who had never *' learned from personal experience 
the nature of a popular deliberative body." Such experience, 
however, would have availed but little, had it been unaccom- 
panied with intense popular sympathies. The democracies of 
Greece had commended themselves to his ardent feeling:s for 
human improvement ; they were not always what he could 
have wished, though greatly in advance of anything that the 
world had seen before them, and of the greater number of 
the polities that came after them. Athens — 

the eye of Greece, 
Mother of arts and eloquence — 
Was the democracy by pre-eminence, 

the object of his special interest and aflection. He found 
(he used to say) many admirers of Athens, but no one 
possessed with a strong philo-Athenian sentiment. He 
avowed himself, at the outset of his work, as the historian 
of Grecian freedom ; the plan, as stated in his own words, 
was to " exhaust the free life of collective Hellas." 

For the ancient world and ancient modes of thinking, in 
some of their contrasts with the modern, he had a strong 
predilection ; and hence he turned Grecian studies to their 
proper end of correcting the one-sidedness of our prevailing 
notions and usages. This he esteemed the great recom- 
mendation of classical culture, and the motive for its being 
retained in general education. More especially did he 



[70] CHAEACTEK AND WRITINGS. 

regard tlie ancient ethics as an essential supplement of our 
modern views ; but, unfortunately^ we are precluded from 
knowing, except in a general way, to what extent and on 
what points. 

A rapid survey of the leading features of the ' History ' 
will enable us to note its characteristic merits, as settled by 
the judgment of competent critics, while alluding at the 
same time to the points whereon opinions are still divergent. 

As to the general effect, perhaps the most emphatic 
testimony was given by Mr. Mill, in these words : — " Though 
the statement has the air of an exaggeration, yet, after much 
study of Mr. Grote's book, we do not hesitate to assert, that 
there is hardly a fact of importance in Grecian history which 
was perfectly understood before his re-examination of it." 

The opening of the ^ History ' is marked by the peculiar 
mode of dealing with legendary Greece. The author had 
already published an article giving his views as to the origin 
of the Legends ; that paper is reprinted in the present 
volume, as containing illustrations not wholly superseded by 
the fuller handling in the first volume of the ' History.' I 
summarise his later positions, nearly in his own w^ords : — 

Having regard to the standard of evidence recognised for 
modern events, '^ I begin the real history of Greece with the 
first recorded Olympiad, or 776 B.C. To such as are accus- 
tomed to the habits once universal, and still .not uncommon, 
in investigating the ancient world, I may appear to be 
striking off one thousand years from the scroll of history ; 
but to those whose canon of evidence is derived from Mr. 
Hallam, M. Sismondi, or any other historian of modern 
events, I am well assured that I shall appear lax and 
credulous rather than exigent or sceptical. For the truth 
is, that historical records, properly so called, do not begin 
until long after this date ; nor will any man, who candidly 
considers the extreme paucity of attested facts for the cen- 
turies after 776 B.C., be astonished to learn that the state of 
Greece" for seven or more centuries, previous "cannot be 
described upon anything like decent evidence." 



THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [71] 

"The times which I thus set apart from the region of 
history are discernible only through a different atmosphere 
— that of epic poetry and legend. To confound together 
these disparate matters is, in my judgment, essentially un- 
philosophical. I describe the earlier times by themselves, 
as conceived by the faith and feeling of the first Greeks, and 
known only through their legends, without presuming to 
measure how much or how little of historical matter these 
legends may contain. If the reader blame me for not assist- 
ing him to determine this — if he ask me why I do not 
undraw the curtain and disclose the picture, I reply in the 
words of the painter Zeuxis, when the same question was 
addressed to him on exhibiting his master-piece of imitative 
art — ' The curtain is the picture.' What we now read as 
poetry and legend was once accredited history, and the only 
genuine history which the first Greeks could conceive or 
relish of their past time; the curtain conceals nothing 
behind, and cannot by any ingenuity be withdrawn. I 
undertake only to show it as it stands, not to efface, still less 
to re-paint, it. 

" Three-fourths of the two volumes now presented to the 
public are destined to elucidate this age of historical faith, 
as distinguished from the later age of historical reason : to 
exhibit its basis in the human mind — an omnipresent reli- 
gious and personal interpretation of nature ; to illustrate it 
by comparison with the like mental habit in early modern 
Europe ; to show its immense abundance and variety of 
narrative matter, with little care for consistency between one 
story and another : lastly, to set forth the causes which over- 
grew and partially supplanted the old epical sentiment and 
introduced, in the room of the literal faith, a variety of 
compromises and interpretations." 

The author's peculiarity lay in illustrating the origination 
of tradition, whether with or without foundation of fact, in 
the emotional tendencies of the mind. By no one had this 
mental operation been hitherto made fully apparent ; since 
his exposition, it has become a received doctrine of human 



[72] CHAKACTER AND WRITINGS. 

nature. '^ The influence of imagination an 1 feeling is not 
confined simply to the process of retouching, transferring, or 
magnifying narratives originally founded on fact ; it will 
often create now narratives of its own, without any such 
preliminary basis." Whenever any body of sentiment is 
widely prevalent, all incidents in conformity with that senti- 
ment are eagerly believed. If real incidents are not at 
hand, their place will be supplied by impressive fictions ; 
the perfect harmony of such fictions with the general feeling 
stands in place of testimony ; and to question them is to 
incur obloquy. In the innumerable religious legends — 
deriving their origin not from facts misreported, but from 
pious feelings pervading the society — not merely the inci- 
dents, but often even the personages, are unreal ; the gene- 
rating sentiment being conspicuously discernible, and pro- 
viding its ow^n matter as well as its own form. 

We have now the word " Myth " or mythus, to express 
not a mere fiction, falsification, or untruth, but a narrative 
shaped to suit a strong sentiment or feeling, and believed 
in solely through the influence of that feeling. 

In accordance with this view, the Historian occupies his 
first volume with detailing the chief legendary tales and 
narratives of Greece, first as regards the gods, and next as 
regards heroes and men : following a systematic order so as 
to connect each locality with its own legends. The two con- 
cluding chapters are devoted to the discussion of the Grecian 
myths. The one chapter takes them up as understood, 
felt, and interpreted by the Greeks themselves, and traces 
the altered state of the Grecian mind respecting them, from 
the unflinching credence of the early Greeks to the altera- 
tion of view following the influence of extended commerce 
and the development of physical science, together with the 
advanced ethical standard of later times. The subject is 
illustrated by the author's usual thoroughness and exhaustive 
learning, and the chapter, when read for the first time, is 
one to leave an indelible impression. The concluding chapter 
is "The Grecian Mythical View Compared with that of 



THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [73] 

Modern Europe." The author here pursues the illustration 
through the Middle Ages, adverting to the Legends of the 
Saints, the Eomances of Chivalry, the Teutonic and Scan- 
dinavian Epic, and our early English history. 

Taken in their proper character, the Grecian myths con- 
stitute an important chapter in the history of the Grecian 
mind, and of the human race. The faith of the Greeks in 
their historical narratives is as much subjective and peculiar 
as their faith in their religion ; the two are intimately con- 
joined, and cannot be separated without violence. Gods, 
heroes and men, religion and patriotism, matters divine, 
heroic, and human — were all woven together into one indivi- 
sible web, in which the threads of truth and reality, whatever 
they might originally have been, were not intended to be, 
and were not in fact, distinguishable. 

To realise to himself, and to bring before the reader, the 
religious feelings of the Greek mind at its different stages 
was regarded by Mr. Grote as an indispensable portion of 
his duty as a historian. He never loses an opportunity for 
this end ; and his success has been admitted. The work 
has been done once for all. 

On one point, however, subsequent inquirers have not 
coincided with him. He maintained, with emphasis, that 
we could not go back beyond the legends as they stand. 
"The legendary age had its antecedent causes and deter- 
mining conditions, but of these we know nothing, and we 
are compelled to assume it as a primary fact for the pur- 
pose of following out its subsequent changes. To conceive 
absolute beginning or origin is beyond the reach of our 
faculties ; we can neither apprehend nor verify anything 
beyond progress, or development, or decay — change from 
one set of circumstances to another, operated by some defi- 
nite combination of physical or moral laws. In the case of 
the Greeks, the legendary age, as the earliest in any way 
known to us, must be taken as the initial state from which 
this series of changes commences." This view is remark- 
ably characteristic of the author's thorough appreciation of. 



[74] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

and acquiescence in, the limitation of the human faculties. 
In resignation to the inevitable, at all points, he had effec- 
tually schooled himself; and the triumph of his discipline 
is best seen in matters of knowledire. 

The despair of ascending beyond the recorded legends has 
not been shared by all inquirers. Comparative philology 
has been invoked to show the connection between the Greek 
leo^ends and the Hindu mvtholoo:v; the names and functions 
of the deities have been found to be strikinelv allied. 

Again, the very incidents of legendary narrative are 
shown in various instances to be of wide-spread occurrence 
over different countries, pointing to some remote common 
orio'in. 

3Ioreover, the attempt had often been made to assign a 
speculative origin to the polytheistic creed, in accordance with 
known laws and tendencies of the human mind. Comte's three 
stages have become familiar to the public mind, and were 
well known to Mr. Grote. An interestins: statement of the 
theoretical development of religious belief up to the point 
of the Grecian legends was given in Mr. Mill's review of 
the first and second volumes of the * History.' Since then, 
minute attention to the records of primitive societies has 
greatly advanced these speculations. Within the last few 
Years the writin2:s of Sir John Lubbock, Tvlor, and M'Lennau 
have thrown new light upon the stages antecedent to the 
Greeks. 

Had these works appeared before Mr. Grote wrote the 
early chapters, he would have studied them most carefully, 
and have extracted from them whatever satisfied his judg- 
ment as bearing on the anterior stages of religious belief. 
He was, however, slow to admit the sufficiency of the evi- 
dence for such theories : and at the time when he wrote there 
was nothing that he could rely upon for carrying him back 
bevond the stag:e of the leo;ends. 

One great advantage has been gained from his taking up 
this position, namely, perfect impartiality in representing the 
facts as they are actually recoi'ded. It is true that, even 



THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [75] 

when he had a theory to support, he was scrupulous to 
a degree in his statement of facts : yet, our satisfaction is 
here unalloyed by the possibility of suspicion. Consequently, 
the comparative mythologists and speculators can accept his 
rendering of Grecian facts as authentic data, of equal value 
with the original records; while his empirical generalities 
meet tlie other theorisers half way. 

I cannot help referring to one singular and undesigned 
coincidence between one of his generalities and a theory 
derived from a totally different region of facts. He remarks 
in the worship of the Greeks a concurrence of three things 
in the objects of worship, whether gods, demi-gods, or 
heroes — the tribal name, the deity worshipped, and the 
fact of descent : all this is conjoined in the " eponymos " of 
each tribe. The Herakleids, besides bearing the name, 
deified Herakles, and called themselves his descendants. 
Now Mr. M'Lennan has generalised the same coinci- 
dence under the name " totemism," derived from the word 
" totem," among the American Indians, absurdly rendered 
" medicine " by the early travellers. He shows that the 
" totem," which may be various in kind, but draws largely 
from the lower animals, is the tribal name, the ancestor, 
and the object of worship: and '• totemism," in the shape 
of animal worship more particularly, is traced by him as 
a phenomenon of wide-spread occurrence, and comprising a 
very large department of the religious worship of early 
nations. 

In the twentieth chapter of his work, Mr. Grote endea- 
vours to derive from the Homeric poems an account of the 
state of society in legendary Greece. The attempt had 
been often made ; still, in the author's treatment there is 
considerable freshness and many new suggestions. The 
triple political institution — hasileus (king), -houle (senate), 
agora (assembly) — he minutely examines, as the precursor 
of the democracies of later Greece. One of the favourite 
extracts of the reviewers is that passage where he traces 
to the infancy of the nation *' the employment of public 



[76] CHARACTEK AND WRITINGS. 

speaking as the standing engine of government and the 
proximate cause of obedience." He also takes great pains 
to illustrate the character of the moral sentiment in the 
ages depicted by Homer. The keynote is struck thus : — 
" There is no sense of obligation, then, existing between man 
and man, as such, and very little between each man and the 
community of which lie is a member ; such sentiments 
are neither operative in the real world nor present to the 
imaginations of the poets." Personal feelings either towards 
the gods, the king, or some near and known individual fill 
the whole of a man's bosom. 

While copiously illustrating, by citations from the his- 
tories of early society, the features and peculiarities of the 
Homeric Greeks, he still refrains from speculating on the 
anterior stages; and the remark already made, as to his 
voraciousness of rendering, is equally applicable here. In 
this department, too, much has been done to elucidate 
the condition of primitive man, but hitherto the researches 
have not suflSced to assign a situation immediately preceding 
that given in the Homeric poems. 

In a chapter on the internal structure of the Hiad and 
Odyssey, he maintains that, while the Odyssey possesses a 
unity throughout, the Hiad bears traces of the combination 
of two separate poems, one an Achilleid, having for its 
subject the wrath of Achilles, the other (Books 2-7 and 10) 
an addition converting the Achilleid into an Iliad. The 
evidence is drawn from the internal structure of the poem, 
a kind of evidence that he himself always held to be ex- 
tremely precarious. He accordingly treated his view as 
having merely a probability superior to any other. No part 
of the history, however, was more frequently dissented from 
by critics ; but though he perused all the hostile criticisms, 
he saw no sufficient reason for giving up his case. 

The entire compass of the Homeric field has been more 
recently surveyed by Mr. Gladstone, in an exceedingly care- 
ful and elaborate disquisition, entitled ' Studies on Homer 
and the Homeric Age.' He devotes one volume to the 



THE HISTOKY OF GREECE. [77] 

ethnology of the Greek races ; another to the religion and 
morals of the Homeric age ; in a third, he inquires into 
the polities, or political constitutions, compares the T^^ojans 
and Greeks, discusses the geography of the Odyssey, and 
expatiates on the artistic merits of Homer. On various 
points he comes into collision with Mr. Grote. He takes 
very high ground as to the historical value of Homer, main- 
taining that in regard to the religion, history, ethnology, 
polity, and life at large, his poems stand far above any later 
traditions; that of all the ages that have passed since 
Homer, not one has produced a more acute, accurate, and 
comprehensive observer ; and that he alone was imbued from 
head to foot with the spirit and the associations of the heroic 
time. He thinks that a great error has been committed in 
not distinguishing Homer by a broad line from all the other 
sources of legendary narrative — namely, Hesiod, the trage- 
dians and the minor Greek poets, the scattered notices of the 
historians, the antiquarian writers near the Christian era, 
and the scholiasts. He considers that Mr. Grote's treatment 
of the legends has countenanced this error, and he opens 
up for consideration the question whether the personality 
of Agamemnon and Achilles has no better root in history 
than that of Pelasgus, of Prometheus, or of Hellen ; and 
whether all these are no more than equal in credit to Ceres, 
Bacchus, or Apollo. 

While Mr. Grote regards as hopeless any inquiry into the 
ante-Hellenic Pelasgians, Mr. Gladstone undertakes to show, 
from Homer, that two distinct races appear on the stage, a 
superior and an inferior; the superior were the Hellenes, 
represented by the Greeks, the besiegers of Troy; the 
inferior, the Pelasgi, represented by the Trojans. The 
Hellenes culminated in Attica, the Pelasgians in Arcadia. 
The two races had distinctive aptitudes, and the Greek mind 
in its highest development combined the two. 

Mr. Gladstone's account of the religion consists in a 
minute examination of all the deities introduced by Homer. 
Starting from the idea that the Homeric theology is a cor- 



[78] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

ruption or defacement of the primitive Scriptural traditions, 
lie shows by what downward steps the true and pure idea of 
God became transformed into the imperfect deities of Homer. 
He distinguishes what he considers the traditive from the 
inventive element of the theogony. In passing from the 
theology to the morals, he replies with some warmth to 
Mr. Grote's remark that the Greek terms for good and evil 
{a<ya6o^, ea6\o^ and KaKo<;) originally meant power, and not 
worth ; that the ethical meaning hardly appears until the 
discussions raised by Sokrates and prosecuted by his disciples. 
^' I ask permission to protest against whatever savours of the 
idea that any Socrates whatever was the patentee of that 
sentiment of right and wrong, which is the most precious 
part of the patrimony of mankind. The movement of Greek 
morality with the lapse of time was chiefly downward, and 
not upward." The discordance of the two authorities is 
here fundamental and incurable. 

On the polities, or political constitutions, Mr. Gladstone 
re-examines Mr. Grote's view of the three great constituents 
— king, senate, assembly, or agora. Most interesting, per- 
haps, is his minute discussion of the standing of the agora, 
or assembled freemen. Mr. Grote, interpreting the picture 
of the assembly in the second Iliad, regarded the people as 
leaving no status whatever but to listen and obey. Mr. 
Gladstone, already for a quarter of a century experienced in 
the workings of assemblies, brings to bear many subtle and 
powerful arguments to show that the assembly had con- 
siderable influence on the decisions of the monarch, although 
he fully admits the force of Mr. Grote's remark that there 
is no record of the takini>: of a vote. Amono- other indica- 
tions he refers to the cheers of the people as a proof of their 
power ; for in every tolerably-regulated assembly the giving 
of applause distinguishes the body itself from mere strangers 
or spectators ; it being a truth common to every age that 
such applause constitutes a share in the business and con- 
tributes to the decision. 

Mr. Gladstone combats at length Mr. Grote's theory of 



THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [79] 

the double structure of the Iliad, resenting especially the 
suggestion of the possibility of double authorship. His 
reasonings are very subtle, and many of them are of a kind 
that might not be generally convincing ; yet the discussion 
is highly stimulating, opening up varied aspects of the poem 
and starting new problems. 

Legendary Greece together with the Homeric poems occupy 
the first volume of the ' History ' and nearly one half of the 
second. The author now changes the designation to — " Part 
II. — Historical Greece " — under which all his subsequent 
chapters are numbered. Not content with indicating his 
sense of the broad distinction between the legendary and 
the historical times by this very emphatic mode of shaping 
the titles, he performs the somewhat violent operation of 
transposing the Geography of Greece from its natural place 
at the outset of the work to the be^inuino' of Part II. 
He was aware of the awkwardness of the arrangement, 
and admitted that the legends, in common with the his- 
torical facts, were sus(;eptible of elucidation from the geo- 
graphy, but did not consider the artifice too much for 
marking the chasm between the legendary and the historical 
domain. 

The geographical sketch is careful and highly interesting ; 
it might have been advantageously enlarged ; the bearings 
of the geographical facts on the character, institutions, 
and history of the Greeks are by no means exhausted. 
An often-quoted passage, on the effect of the configuration of 
the Grecian territory on the political system and the intellec- 
tual development, is remarkable for tlie author's caution 
in not crediting physical influences with more than their 
legitimate worth. For explaining the many-sided superiority 
of Greece to the rest of the world, we must postulate, in 
the first instance, an inherent superiority of race. The 
scattered branches of the human family being, from what- 
ever causes, most unequally, as well as most variously, 
gifted in their natural organisation, some one people must 
be at the top. A favourable surrounding converts the small 



[80] CHARACTER AI^ID WRITINGS. 

primitive inequality into a divergence of careers so great 
as to seem wholly incompatible with a common origin. 

I quote the following summary from Mr. Mill : — 

" In the six concluding chapters of the second volume 
Mr. Grote comprises the sum of what is known respecting 
the early condition of those Grrecian states which have pro- 
perly no history prior to the Persian invasion, and brings 
down the history of tlie Peloponnesian Greeks to the age 
of Croesus and Pisistratus. The fragmentary nature of the 
information, and the conscientious integrity of the author, 
who scruples to supply the deficiency of certified facts by 
theory and conjecture, render these chapters, with one ex- 
ception, somewhat meagre. The exception is the chapter 
treating of the legislation of Lycurgus, the earliest Grecian 
event of first-rate historical importance." 

The chapter on the '^ Laws and Discipline of Lycurgus at 
Sparta" has a twofold interest. The main subject is the 
origin and character of that extraordinary system of public 
discipline which forms the point of departure of the action 
of Sparta in the vicissitudes of the Grecian story. The 
one-sided Spartan culture, with its astonishing results, was 
a favourite subject with the Greek philosophers ; and it 
will descend through all time as a unique manifestation of 
humanity. Mr. Grote has applied his analysing power to the 
phenomenon, and we can scarcely hope ever to extract from 
the materials a more thorough account than he has given us. 

The other point in the chapter is the examination of 
the evidence for one important item in the alleged reforms 
of Lycurgus — the equal division of the lands. Intrinsi- 
cally this is not incredible, considering what Lycurgus 
really effected; but being unmentioned by all the authors 
that were alive while the institutions of Sparta were still 
in force, and appearing for the first time in Plutarch, the 
evidence for it must be held as defective. After exhaus-' 
tively reviewing all the earlier authorities, Mr. Grote comes 
to inquire how the allegation could have sprung up in the 
age of Plutarch ; and here he is rewarded by a most feli- 



THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [81] 

citous application of his theory of the generation of the 
mythus. To all previous historians such a statement as 
Plutarch's seemed necessarily to contain some truth : to him 
the origin suggested itself apart from any vestige whatso- 
ever of underlying fact. It was fiction from first to last— 
'' the expression of some large idea and sentiment, so powerful 
in its action on men's minds at a given time as to induce 
them to make a place for it among the realities of the past." 
A situation actually occurred in the times of Agis III. 
(about 250 B.C.) when men's imaginations were heated to 
the proper pitch for fabricating a legend. The missing link 
is thus supplied, and the Lycurgian division of the lands 
of Sparta has taken its place among mythical creations. 

The second instalment of the * History ' — volumes three 
and four— appeared in 18i7. Two more volumes followed 
in 1849. The critique in the Edinburgh Review on these 
four volumes was by Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 

The third volume opens with a chapter entitled, " The 
Age of the Grecian Despots," one of the author's best con- 
tributions to political philosophy, as well as to Grecian 
history. It records the gradual change from the primitive 
political constitution of Homer — King, Council, and Assembly 
— to the advent of Democracy. The early stages are obscure. 
The Homeric king, strong in his divine right and personal 
ascendency, appears to have been superseded by his council, 
as an oligarchy, who acted in a body for legislative purposes, 
while one of their number, by rotation or otherwise, headed 
the executive. It was out of these oligarchies that there 
came forth, between 650 and 500 B.C., the class of rulers 
termed Despots, who got possession of the supreme power 
in various ways, but exercised it without check or control, 
and often with such tyrannous excesses that their name 
became odious in Greece. While in some states, as Sparta, 
the ancient hereditary king was maintained, his authority 
being withdrawn and himself superseded, except as a vene- 
rable relic, by more modern creations, in the greater part of 
Greece the kingship disappeared. 

9 



[82] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

This whole chapter is full of interesting political reflec- 
tions as to the historical chans^es in the institution of 
monarchy. The remarks on the British Constitution as 
it would have appeared to Aristotle, are highly suggestive 
and curious. 

Two chapters are devoted to the early history of Athens ; 
the first recounting its political constitution and history (so 
far as ascertainable) before Solon ; the second embracing the 
legislation of Solon. On this last subject the author bestows 
especial attention. The reforms of Solon were called forth 
by great internal dissension, produced by the misery of the 
poorer population. This misery seemed to have been greatly 
owing to the workings of the law of debtor and creditor, to 
which Solon applied the relief of the sponge, with a palliation 
to the creditor by debasing the money standard. 

Mr. Grote is in his element in the exposition and vindi- 
cation of these strong measures, and gives us a valuable 
episode on the prejudices entertained in antiquity against 
lending money at interest. Eeviewing at length the various 
chancres made by Solon, he corrects the confusion that 
afterwards prevailed between these and the institutions of 
subsequent legislators. Solon, indeed, laid the foundations 
of Athenian democracy ; yet his institutions were not demo- 
cratical, but oligarchical. The concluding eulogy on the 
legislator himself is highly illustrative of the author's own 
type of human nobleness. '' He (Solon) represents the best 
tendencies of his age, combined with much that is per- 
sonally excellent ; the thirst for enlaro^ed knowledsfe and 
observation, not less potent in old age than in youth ; the 
conception of regularised popular institutions, departing 
sensibly from the type and spirit of the governments 
around him, and calculated to found a new character in the 
Athenian people ; a genuine and reflecting sympathy with 
the mass of the poor, anxious not merely to rescue them 
from the oppressions of the rich, but also to create in them 
habits of self-relying industry ; lastly, during his temporary 
possession of a power altogether arbitrary, not merely an 



THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [83] 

absence of all selfish ambition, but a rare discretion in 
seizing the mean between conflicting exigencies." 

Before the death of Solon occurred the usurpation of the 
despot Pisistratus, which Solon vainly but courageously- 
resisted. The narrative of his reign is interrupted for many- 
chapters by a survey of the Asiatic G-reeks (Ionic, ^iEolic, 
and Dorian) and the natives of Asia Minor, with whom the 
Greeks became connected. A chapter is devoted to the 
Lydians, Modes, Cimmerians, Scythians ; one to the Phoe- 
nicians, one to the Egyptians, one to the growth of 
Carthage. The author exhausts all available sources in 
rendering complete his account of these various nations, 
not merely for their intrinsic historical interest, but for 
their influence on the Greek mind and history ; this being 
very notable in the case of Egypt. Then comes Grecian 
colonisation in the westward direction^ — Italv, Sicilv, and 
Gaul: the Sicilian settlements being more peculiarly mo- 
mentous in the succeeding events, while celebrity attached 
to some of the cities of the Italian Greeks. In his review. 
Sir G. C. Lewis remarks that " Greek colonisation is dis- 
cussed with remarkable success." Other chapters take up 
the Akarnanians, Epirots, Illyrians, Macedonians, Paeonians, 
Thracians, and Greek colonies in Thrace. The survey is 
completed by a chapter on Kyrene, Barka, and Hesperides. 

A short but interesting chapter (xxviii.) deals with the 
Pan-Hellenic Festivals — Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and 
Isthmian ; investigating their origin, character, and effect on 
the Greek mind. These are severally brought before the reader 
in their most striking and picturesque details. 

The Lyric Poetry is next passed in review; from which, 
singularly enough, there is an insensible transition to the 
constellation of Wise Men (usually called Seven), the begin- 
ners of Greek Philosophy. In continuation of these is the 
commencement of Greek prose. The same chapter em- 
braces the rise of Grecian art. 

A chapter on the Government of Peisistratus and his sons at 
Athens contains the episode of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, 

9 2 



[84] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

on which the author's commentaries are fresh and interest- 
ing, and contain an additional application of his law of the 
o:rowth of le2:end. 

The expulsion of the Peisistratus family is the signal for 
the next sfreat advance in democracy, under Cleisthenes. 
Mr. Grote has the merit of clearing up this great revolutioD, 
and of teaching its unspeakable importance to the future of 
Athens. Amono- the institutions ascribed to Cleisthenes i& 
the ostracism, ^yhich is for the first time rationally ex- 
plained as a great constitutional sedative, at a period when 
the State could not afibrd the presence of restless intriguers. 
It was a mild substitute for impeachment; and Sir George 
Lewis thinks that had it existed in England, in the time of 
Charles I., it mi^rht have o:ot rid of Strafford and Laud 
without the necessity of sendino; them to the block. 

The historian's concludiuo; reflections on the reforms of 
Cleisthenes stir the heart like the sound of a trumpet. 
Never weary of the them^ of human liberty, he re-toiiches 
it on each occasion with fresh and irlowinir colours. Wliat 
Herodotus puts in the front rank of the advantages of 
democracy — " its most splendid name and promise " — is no 
mere rhetoric, but a real power, the source of all the ex- 
ploits that have conferred immortal renown on the Athenian 
name. 

Four chapters contain the events preparatory to the gTcat 
Persian strus^ele, and brins: it down to Marathon, " the 
narrative of which cannot be read, for the himdredth time, 
without deep emotion." The rise of the Persian empire, 
under its founder Cyrus : the succession of Cambvses and of 
Darius ; the Ionic revolt and its supjDression by Darius ; the 
invasion of the mainland of Greece, with a special view to be 
avenged on Athens ; the encounter at Marathon — all belong 
to the purely narrative work of the historian. After an 
interruption, to be noticed presently, he continues, in five 
chapters more, the invasion of Xerxes, which led to the 
immortal conflicts at Tiiermopyl^, Artemisium, Salamis, 
Platsea, and Mycale. " Marathon and, for the most part, 



THE HISTOEY OF GREECE. [85] 

Salamis and Mycale are the work of Athens ; Thermopylse, 
and to a great extent Platsea, of Sparta. By the courage, 
intelligence, and moral superiority in contending against 
overwhelming numbers which the Greeks exhibited at this 
great crisis, they have earned the imperishable gratitude of 
all civilised nations." (G. C Lewis.) 

We ought not to pass the chapter on Marathon without 
some reference to the concluding portion, which is occupied 
in dealing with the charges made against the Athenians for 
their ill-treatment of Miltiades after his great services. The 
vindication is in Mr. Grote's very best manner. Extenuating 
nothing, he shows that the conduct of Miltiades that led to 
his punishment was reprehensible in the extreme, that his 
past services were fairly taken into account, in the only 
admissible way, to wit, in mitigation of the penalty. It was 
from no fickleness in the people that they turned against 
him ; they had been most lavish in their gratitude after the 
great victory, and their change of mind was due to an 
adequate cause. It was a weakness in the Greeks to be too 
much carried away by their impulses of gratitude for dis- 
tinguished services. With this fitted in, often to fatal re- 
sults, another weakness (perhaps having the same root in the 
mind) which Mr. Grote deploringly signalises. '^ There is no 
feature," he says, " that more largely pervades the impres- 
sible Grecian character than a liability to be intoxicated and 
demoralised by success ; there was no fault from which so 
few eminent Greeks were free ; there was hardly any danger 
against which it was at once so necessary and so difficult for 
the Grecian governments to take security, especially the 
democracies, where the manifestations of enthusiasm were 
always the loudest." 

In a chapter (xxxvii.) introduced during the panic of 
the Persians after the defeat of Marathon, he takes occasion 
to notice the great Ionic philosopher, Thales, and his suc- 
cessors ; and recounts at full the views, character, and political 
position of Pythagoras in the colony of Italian Greeks at 
Croton, in Italy. This is the author's first contribution to 



[86] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

the rise and progress of Greek philosophy, which he included 
in his original plan of the ' History of Greece.' 

Tlie conclusion of the Persian repulse is followed by a 
chapter on Sicily, whose history is resumed with the brazen- 
bull despot, Phalaris of Agrigentum, and continued through 
a series of despots in the different cities, to the establishment 
of popular governments throughout the island. 

Eeturning to Athens, the historian enters on a new phase 
of his undertaking — the growth of the Athenian empire, as 
a consequence of the Persian war. I shall here again borrow, 
unfortunately for the last time, the summary expressions of 
Sir George Lewis : — " The imperial rule of Athens was, as 
Mr. Grote has shown, exercised, on the whole, with moderation. 
There were no very unusual obligations imposed on the 
subject state; and so long as it was quiet, and submitted 
patiently to its condition of dependence, it had little to com- 
plain ot But the loss of independence was a bitter privation 
to the Greek freeman, and hence the dominion of Athens 
rested ultimately on force or fear. Her own orators and 
statesmen accordingly always represent her as standing in 
the same relation to her dependent cities as a despot to his 
individual subjects; and openly proclaim the necessity of 
using towards them the terrible maxims of Greek despotism. 
Hence, revolt was summarily punished, as in the memorable 
case of Mitylene ; while, on the other hand, the proceedings 
of Brasidas, in Thrace, show that much persuasion and 
cajolery, backed by the presence of a Lacedemonian army, 
might be necessary in order to induce an Athenian dependent 
city to throw off its allegiance." 

"The history of these subject-allies of Athens — of the 
transition from a voluntary hegemony or headship, to a com- 
pulsive imperial rule — has never been so well written, or half 
so well explained, as by Mr. Grote." 

One of the model chapters of the 'History' is (chapter xlvi.) 
the account of the changes in the Athenian constitution 
under Pericles ; the final development of the democracy, as 
it stood during all the remainder of Athenian freedom. The 



THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [87] 

central fact of the change was the instituting of the Dikas- 
teries, whereby the judicial power was finally separated from 
the executive. Mr. Grote reviews in an exhaustive way the 
momentous bearings of this change, and shows that every 
feature in the new system had a significance entirely over- 
looked in the usual rough-and-ready criticism of Athenian 
institutions under the guidance of the comic poets. He 
makes the happiest use of our modern trial by jury in the 
elucidation of these Athenian courts, and strikingly remarks, 
especially w^ith reference to the large number of the dikasts 
(several hundreds in one court), that there was at that time 
no other conceivable mode of bringing to justice rich and 
powerful criminals. 

The mighty drama — the Peloponnesian War — occupies 
nearly three volumes of the original issue (vi., vii., viii.) The 
story is related with all the author's narrative power; his 
sympathies are deeply engaged throughout the memorable 
vicissitudes of those twenty-nine years. The splendid bursts 
and temporary triumphs of the doomed heroine irradiate the 
deepening gloom. 

In the course of this war, Mr. Grote has introduced many 
of his novel points of view, as regards both characters and 
incidents. As might be supposed, his estimate of Pericles is 
lofty, it is also in the details peculiarly his own. " Pericles," 
he remarks, "is not to be treated as the author of the 
Athenian character; he found it with its very marked 
positive characteristics and susceptibilities, among which 
those that he chiefly brought out and improved were the 
best." He repressed the lust of conquest and regularised 
the democratic movement; and, most of all, did he favour 
the pacific and intellectual development — rhetoric, poetry, 
arts, philosophical research, and recreative variety. Agri- 
culture, trade, the means of defence, were all enormously 
advanced during his time; and he is identified with the 
clothing of Athens in her imperial mantle of architectural 
decoration. His love of philosophy, and his studies under the 
philosopher Anaxagoras, are carefully quoted in his favour. 



[88] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

Of the cliaracters that have to be drawn in the narrative 
of the struggle, the most trenchant, and yet irresistibly just, 
is the sketch of Nikias, the principal cause of the ruin of 
Athens. The contrast between Pericles and Nikias could 
have come from no other hand. The mistaken confidence in 
a man of even mediocrity, fi'om the lustre of his religious 
professions and practice, and the extreme decorum of his 
private life, coupled with pecuniary liberality and incor- 
ruptibility, shows the Athenian public to be not so far 
removed from human nature in our own time. Sydney 
Smith's picture of Perceval is a historical parallel. 

Cleon, the leather-seller, is extricated from the hands of 
both Aristophanes and Thucydides. Oar historian's warm 
admiration for the greatest historical authority of the ancient 
world does not prevent him from discerning the occasions 
when bias crept into his narrative, and one of these is the 
picture of Cleon. The leather-seller had his faults, and 
expiated with his life the weakness of his judgment in mili- 
tary affairs. He had the qualities that in all countries of 
free debate go to make a great opposition speaker ; but the 
charges of Thucydides, amplified by Aristophanes, are treated 
by Mr. Grote as inconsistent Nvith themselves and contrary 
to evidence. Moreover, there were critical moments when 
Cleon, in Mr. Grote's opinion, did eminent public service. 

Alcibiades necessarily occupied a large share of attention 
during these trying events. He contributed more than any 
other man to plunge the Athenians into the disastrous expe- 
dition to Syracuse ; and more than any man, after Nicias, to 
turn that adventure into ruin, and the consequences of it into 
still greater ruin. Yet, he w^as never once defeated either 
by land or by sea ; in new situations he was never wanting. 
On the w^hole we shall find few men in whom eminent 
capacities for action and command are so thoroughly marred 
by an assemblage of bad moral qualities as in Alcibiades, 

In a remarkable eulogy on the Spartan Callicratidas, 
Mr. Grote does honour to an enemy of Athens, on the high 
grounds of his moral superiority to his age and nation, as 



THE HISTORY OF GKEECE. [89] 

shown in declaring that, so long as he was in command, not 
a single free Greek should be reduced to slavery if he could 
prevent it. The grandeur and sublimity of this proceeding 
was without a parallel in Grecian history. But Mr. Grote is 
careful to guard his admiration, for the allies would make 
the reasonable remark — " If ^ve should come to be Conon's 
prisoners, he will not treat us in this manner." " Recijprocity is 
essential to moral observances, public or private, and doubt- 
less Callicratidas felt a w^ell-grounded confidence, that two or 
three auspicious examples would sensibly modify the future 
practice on both sides. But some one must begin by setting 
such examples, and the man who does begin, having a posi- 
tion that gives reasonable chance' that others will folloiv, is a 
hero." 

One of the most extraordinary incidents in Athenian 
history was the mutilation of the Hermse, or half-statues of 
the god Hermes, which stood in vast numbers in all parts 
of Athens. One night all these statues were mutilated 
and defaced by unknown hands. The profanation excited a 
ferment of feeling, which historians have usually treated 
as exaggerated and absurd. Mr. Grote corrects this notion, 
by his juster appreciation of the religious sentiments of the 
Greeks. He had given notice, in the preface to his first 
volume, that this incident would be a testing case of a 
historian's "entering into the way in which the Greeks con- 
nected their stability and security with the domiciliation of 
the gods in the soil ; " and his own handling has amply com- 
plied with the test. 

Equally happy and convincing is the explanation given of 
one of the melancholy acts of the Athenian public, the con- 
demnation of the ten generals after the battle of Arginusse, 
a victory to Athens deplorable from the loss of Callicratidas. 
Mr. Grote reviews the case in all its particulars, as if he w^ere 
the judge in a supreme court of appeal. He shows that the 
accusation against the generals was proceeding in due form, 
and might have been decided with perfect justice, but for the 
occurrence of a grand family solemnity of the Ionic race, 



[90] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

the Apaturia (our Christmas in an intensified form), during 
which the empty places made in the family circles by 
the recent battle, led to excited reflection on the culpable 
neglect of the generals to perform the obsequies to the slain. 
The trial was resumed under this excitement. The formali- 
ties provided by the constitution for securing a fair trial 
were violently set aside (Socrates alone of the presiding 
officials daring to withstand the current), and the generals 
were condemned. "It was an act of violent injustice and 
illegality, deeply dishonouring the men that passed it and the 
Athenian character generally." It was long and bitterly 
repented. Much as the subject had been discussed, Mr. Grote 
was the first to perceive in the incidents of an Athenian 
Christmas, an adequate explanation of the vindictive pro- 
ceeding. 

Another remarkable event in the war is the setting up of 
the oligarchy of tlie Four Hundred. This is the subject of 
a thrillins: narrative, and also furnishes additional illustra- 
tions of the Athenian democracy ; and, not least, of the extra- 
ordinary respect for constitutional forms, which was the rvle, 
while the fatality just mentioned was the exception, in the 
best times of Athens. 

The naval fight at -^gospotami ended the twenty-nine 
years' combat between Athens and Sparta. Athens was 
ruined. The Spartan conqueror is master of the city, de- 
stroys its material defences, sets up the oligarchy known 
as the Thirtv Tvrants, whose wholesale executions did not 
suffice to uphold it. The democracy is again restored. 
With deep satisfaction the historian depicts their lenity 
towards the usurpers — both the Four Hundred and the Thirty 
— as contrasted with the cruelties thev had suffered at the 
hands of the oligarchs. The respect to the rights of property 
was an equally honourable distinction of the democratic rule. 

Our author leads us to the end of the restless career of 
Alcibiades, and then indulges in a pause, which, however, 
is only to enter on a campaign in another field. Chapter 
Ixvii. is entitled, " The Drama, Rhetoric and Dialectic, 



THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [91] 

the Sophists:'' the real interest of the chapter being con- 
centrated in the last head. A most offensive odour had 
been imparted to these men; and the grounds of it are 
now challenged for the first time. The charges are gone 
over point for point, and confronted with a broadside of 
destructive facts, for ever silencing the calumniators of the 
unfortunate Sophists. The present chapter is generally con- 
sidered to have done the work : but, we shall not see the last, 
nor the most curious part of the case, till we come to the 
" Aristotle." 

The succeeding chapter is equally exciting in its origi- 
nality — the account of Socrates. The author found here a 
vent to discharge his very strongest impulses — the love of 
free inquiry, the reprobation of the tyranny of sentiment in 
the human mind, the delight in the self-acting judgment 
of the individual ; and he followed out the opening with his 
usual energy. In the story of Socrates he does justice to the 
sublimity and the pathos of the circumstances attending 
the trial, and measures out strict justice to the Athenian 
people, who were on their trial no less than Socrates. 
But his greatest interest centred in the Socratic cross- 
questioning, an unparalleled phenomenon in the history of 
thought. I well remember his conversation in the heat of 
composing this chapter ; his astonishment at the invention 
of such a weapon, and his belief that if it could be resumed 
in any shape, it might still have an extraordinary potency 
in quickening independent thought. 

These two chapters on the Sophists and Socrates closed 
the eighth volume. A critic in the Times gave utterance to 
the opinion that the work was now virtually closed ; as if 
the remaining narrative could furnish no equal displays of 
the author's originality, or impart no new surprise. There 
might be a momentary plausibility in the supposition ; yet 
the subsequent volumes did not confirm the critic's judg- 
ment. 

The ninth volume opened with three long chapters on the 
famous expedition of the Ten Thousand Greeks. The 



[92] CHAT^ACTER AND WRITINGS. 

author carefully recounts every turn of this memorable expe- 
dition, which did not effect its purpose, but yet taught the 
contemporary world the impotence of the Persian land force, 
while possessing an undying interest as a display of Athenian 
qualities and accomplishments. It "exemplifies the dis- 
cipline, the endurance, the power of self-action and adapta- 
tion, the susceptibility of influence from sjpeecli and discussion ^ 
the combination of the reflecting obedience of citizens with 
the mechanical regularity of soldiers, which confer such 
immortal distinction on the Hellenic character." Now it was 
the Athenian democracy, and its allied institutions, of which 
not the least important was the schooling of the rhetors and 
sophists, which raised men able to sway the minds of others 
by speech, and educated the mass of citizens to listen to 
reasons and follow prudential guidance. This fact was never 
shown to better advantage than in the difficulties of that 
remarkable expedition, and in the way that they were met 
and overcome by the oratory of Xenophon ; the persuasive- 
ness of which essentially consisted in a series of appeals 
to the self-regarding forethought of the audience. The 
Spartans were undoubtedly great on the field; yet the 
salvation of the Oyreian force was chiefly due to qualities 
that were not Spartan but Athenian. 

The author avows his strong engrossment and interest in 
the proceedings of these mercenaries. In a private letter at 
the time, to Sir George Lewis, he describes himself as at 
work on the ' Anabasis,' and " finds the day too short." 

The Lacedemonian empire, in its brief tenure of power, 
falls next to be described. Greece now saw the merits of 
the Athenian supremacy in a new light. The Spartan 
tyranny was too hot to last, and it soon met with a crushing 
reverse, under the Thebans and Epaminondas. The recital 
of this great Nemesis is a cheering and brilliant ray after the 
deep gloom of Syracuse and u3Egospotanii. In regard to 
the illustrious Theban, Mr. Grote cannot add to, or take 
from, the admiration of all succeeding times ; but his por- 
traiture, as usual, contains fresh and characteristic touches. 



THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [93] 

As in the case of Solon and Pericles, we are told that 
Epaminondas, in addition to all the education of an accom- 
plished Theban citizen, sought with eagerness the conversa- 
tion of the philosophers -within his reach, and came under 
the influence of two that had been companions of Socrates. 
In this way, he both enlarged his intellectual grasp and, 
like Pericles, emancipated himself from that superstitious 
dread of signs and omens that had enslaved so many Grecian 
commanders. His eloquence was effective even against the 
best Athenian opponents. The combination of such great 
capacity with a modest and unambitious disposition was a 
rare exception to the prevailing forwardness and self-esteem 
of Greeks generally. Nor was he less remarkable for the 
gentleness of his political antipathies, the repugnance to 
harsh treatment of conquered enemies, and the refusal to 
mingle in intestine bloodshed. 

The prowess of Epaminondas left the Spartans helpless, 
and enabled Athens to regain a certain measure of her old 
ascendency. Nineteen chapters, occupying the bulk of two 
volumes, are devoted to the bringing about of this mighty 
result. But the historian, in a few significant sentences, 
strikes the delighted reader with a cold shudder of appre- 
hension and foreboding. The recovery of the Chersonese by 
Athens, which was the moment of her maximum of return- 
ing greatness, almost exactly coincided with the revolt 
among her principal allies, named the Social War, and with 
the accession of Philip of Macedon. 

*^ At the opening of my ninth volume, after the surrender 
of Athens, Greece was under the Spartan empire. Its nume- 
rous independent city-communities were more completely 
regimented under one chief than they had ever been before, 
Athens and Thebes being both numbered among the fol- 
lowers of Sparta. 

" But the conflicts recounted in these volumes (during 
an interval of forty-four years — 404-3 B.C. to 360-59 B.C.) 
have wrought the melancholy change of leaving Greece 
more disunited, and more destitute of presiding Hellenic 



[94] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

authority, than she had been at any time since the Persian 
invasion. Thebes, Sparta, and Athens had all been engaged 
in weakening each other ; in which, unhappily, each has 
been more successful than in strengthening herself. The 
maritime power of Athens is now indeed considerable, and 
may be called very great, if compared with the state of 
degradation to which she had been brought in 403 B.C. But 
it will presently be seen how unsubstantial is the foundation 
of her authority, and how fearfully she has fallen off from 
that imperial feeling and energy which ennobled her 
ancestors under the advice of Pericles. 

" It is under these circumstances, so untoward for defence, 
that the aggressor from Macedonia arises." 

The historian now turns to Sicilv, unmentioned since the 
Syracusan catastrophe. The first of the Sicilian chapters 
brings the Carthaginians on the stage, and recounts the fall 
of the Gelonian dynasty and the rise of the elder Dionysius. 
Another chapter is devoted to this noted personage, whose 
career is a model of the "Despot's progress." A third 
chapter completes his terrible reign of thirty-eight years. 
All the power of Carthage was arrayed against him, but he 
had an effective ally in the pestilence. At the moment of 
his death, Dionysius boasted of having left his dominion 
" fastened by chains of adamant, " sustained by a large body 
of mercenaries, well trained and well paid, by impregnable 
fortifications in the islet of Ortygia, by four hundred ships 
of war, by immense magazines of arms and military stores, 
and by established intimidation over the minds of the 
Syracusans. He was succeeded by his elder son Dionysius 
the younger ; but a far higher part in the government was 
taken by Dion, brother-in-law of the elder Dionysius. An 
entirely new and unique interest attaches to the joint careers 
of these two men. The philosopher Plato had gained an 
ascendency over the mind of Dion, and was pressed by him 
to take a part in re-organising the government of Syracuse. 
Three different visits did the philosopher pay to Syracuse, 
one abrupt and unsatisfactory, in the time of the elder 



•THE HISTORY OP GREECE. [95] 

despot ; a second and third, with better omens, in the time 
of the youDger. On this intimacy between Plato and Dion 
Mr. Grote dwells at some length, regretting the impracticable 
temper and views of the philosopher, as throwing away the 
chance of an interesting experiment in , politics. The two 
masters — king and minister — became alienated ; Dion is 
banished, lives at Athens, his property being first allowed 
him and then withheld. He collects a small armament, 
invades and raises Sicily against the despot ; plays a really 
noble part for a time, and shows intellectual and moral 
qualities worthy of the pupil of a lofty philosophy. He 
gains the day, is master of Syracuse, but collapses into 
ignominious blundering, instead of achieving an illustrious 
name as the liberator of Sicily. Accordingly, the work has 
to be done over again. A man of higher mould, one of the 
upper ten of Grecian commanders, is sent from Corinth to 
the Syracusans in their distress. This is Timoleon, whose 
home life at Corinth was already remarkable for the act of 
killing his own brother who had made himself despot. Mr. 
Grote does not fail to turn this preliminary incident to the 
edification of us moderns, in whom he remarks the sentiment 
of family covers a larger proportion of the field of morality,. 
as compared with obligations towards country, than it did in 
ancient times. 

The hazardous enterprise succeeds through Timoleon's 
bravery, his skilful plans, his quickness of movement, coupled 
with extraordinary good fortune. He speedily gains posses- 
sion of Syracuse. He could have easily and even plausibly 
become despot ; instead of which he determines at once to 
pull down the nest of all the previous despotisms — the strong- 
hold of Ortygia. Very soon he has to meet a vast Cartha- 
ginian armament, which he utterly defeats with inferior 
numbers. He clears Sicily of enemies and despots. Finally, 
he lays down his power at Syracuse, spending his life in 
retirement, and acting only as an adviser in emergencies. 
Epaminondas had been his model, and, if he could not be 
said to improve upon that original, he varied the noble type. 



[96] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

HaviDg done due honour to the Sicilian hero, the history 
now reverts to Athens. The dreary tale of ineffectual re- 
sistance to the onward tread of the Macedonian conquerors 
is still relieved by flashes of heroism and genius. 

After all that Athens had suffered, and after the dis- 
union among the Grecian states, the new hazards from 
a great military neighbour like Philip of Macedon were 
serious indeed. The spirit of Athens was yet equal to 
ordinary efforts, and there came forward one man who, as 
an orator, political leader, and diplomatist, has had no 
superior, if he ever had an equal. But the ability of Demos- 
thenes at home was unsupported by any corresponding 
generalship in the field. The presence now of Epaminondas 
in Greece might have nipped Macedonian conquest in the 
bud. The Athenian general Iphicrates had displayed 
powers equal to the occasion, but, owing to a personal 
quarrel in the beginning of the Social War, he and 
Timotheus, another general of ability, were lost to Athens. 
The agency of corruption was extensively employed by 
Philip: he could always gain partisans in every popular 
assembly in Greece — one of the unavoidable weaknesses of 
popular government. The Athenians were cursed with a 
new incubus, different from Nikias, but not less fatal — 
the incorruptible and plain-spoken Phokion. Mr. Grote 
takes the measure of Phokion's deserts, and credits him with 
a large share of the ruined fortunes of his country. Athens 
became at last demoralised as regarded one of her capital 
virtues : her citizens had contracted a growing reluctance to 
personal military service. Many adventurers were now to 
be bought, like the Ten Thousand Greeks, and to these 
mercenaries unavoidable operations were mainly entrusted ; 
but they also involved expense. " The energy of the Periklean 
Athenian of 431 B.C. had been crushed in the disasters 
closing the Peloponnesian war, and had never again revived. 
The Demosthenic Athenian of 360 B.C. had, as it were, grown 
old. Pugnacity, Pan-Hellenic championship, and the love of 
enterprise, had died within him. He was a quiet, home- 



THE HISTORY OF GREECE. [97] 

keeping, refined citizen, attached to the democratic constitu- 
tion, and executing with cheerful pride his ordinary city- 
duties under it ; but immersed in industrial or professional 
pursuits, in domestic comforts, in the impressive manifesta- 
tions of the public religion, in the atmosphere of discussion 
and thought, intellectual as well as political. To renounce 
all this for foreign and continued military service, he con- 
sidered as a hardship not to be endured, except under the 
pressure of danger near ^nd immediate." It was the glory 
of Demosthenes to struggle all his life against this declen- 
sion of public spirit, and to be able to whip it up to occa- . 
sional efforts ; it was the merit of Phocion to pander to it 
and indulge it, to furnish it with justification and excuse, 
when wrought upon by his younger rival. 

The disastrous and disgraceful betrayal of the Phokians 
in 346 B.C., one of the bad turning-points in the contest with 
Philip, and the silence of Demosthenes at the opportune 
moment, are severely commented on, and yet too well ac- 
counted for, by our historian. I cite this, as one of many 
instances, with a view to show how far he was from glossing 
the real weaknesses of the Athenian democracy, and also to 
prepare the way for a closing remark as to his handling 
of Athens throughout. 

I attribute to the thoroughly scientific and logical cast of 
Grote's mind, in conjunction with his wide knowledge of 
political facts, the novelty and the soundness of his views 
as to the governments of Greece, whether democratical or 
otherwise. There were many floating allegations as to the 
workings of these governments, some of them sober although 
inadequate, others wholly uncertified by evidence and 
biassed by partisanship. By careful scrutiny of the au- 
thorities, he ascertained, so far as possible, what was true and 
what was false; how far the aspersions of the democracies 
and the praise of despots and oligarchs was well founded. 
This was a matter of historical evidence. But, as I remarked 
at the outset, there followed a second and more difficult 
operation— a truly scientific, analytic, and logical procedure 

h 



[98] CHAEACTER AND WRITINGS. 

—to assign the proper causes of effects that were proved to 
have taken place. Here a historian is constantly misled, in 
the same manner as the everyday politician, by mere co- 
incidences, which he is tempted to pronounce cause and 
effect. While many persons professing to be educated are 
disposed to resolve all the peculiar differences between 
American and English habits into the difference in the 
form of government of the two countries, it will seem very 
natural to attribute all the faults and misfortunes of Athens 
to her democracy alone. It is the province of a scientific or 
logical discipline to raise the student above this level, and 
teach him by what arts mere coincidences can be eliminated 
and genuine causation established. The Baconian method 
of varying the circumstances, improved upon in the experi- 
mental philosophy of the last two centuries, has to be 
applied to historical events, and has to be accommodated to 
the peculiarities of the case. When people say democracy 
did so and so, oligarchy so and so, the logician asks, among 
other things, has the alleged effect of democracy been 
always present in democracies, and always absent from the 
other forms of government? This is not conclusive of 
the point, but it is enough to dissipate a host of silly 
assertions. Then again, in political cause and effect, there 
must always be shown some natural tendency, growing out of 
the laws of the human mind, in an alleged cause to produce 
the alleged consequences ; this is to follow out what is called 
the deductive method in logic. 

Half of the twelfth and concluding volume is occupied 
with the conquests of Alexander the Great, first in Greece, 
and next in Asia. " Apart from the transcendent merits of 
Alexander as a soldier and a general, some authors give him 
credit for grand and beneficent views on the subject of 
imperial government, and for intentions highly favourable 
to the improvement of mankind." Mr. Grote &ees " no 
ground for adopting this opinion. As far as we can venture 
to anticipate what would have been Alexander's future, we 
see nothing in prospect except years of ever-repeated 



THE HISTOEY OF GKEECE. [99J 

aggression and conquest, not to be concluded until he had 
traversed and subjugated all the inhabited globe. The ac- 
quisition of universal dominion was the master passion of 
his soul." He could have consolidated nothing. His best 
administrative device was the imitation of the Persian 
satrapies, with Macedonians as his instruments. He was 
neither Macedonian nor Greek in sentiment. The sub- 
stitute for nationality of feeling was an exorbitant self- 
estimation inflamed by success into the belief of divine 
parentage, which entitled him to treat all mankind as subjects 
under the common sceptre to be wielded by himself. Hel- 
lenic in genius, he was Oriental in purpose. 

At the close of the narrative of Alexander's career, the 
reader will find a careful estimate of the civilising influence 
of Greece upon Asia, following on Alexander's conquests, 
through the immediate agency of his successors. Hellenism, 
properly so called, never passed over into Asia. All that did 
pass was a faint and partial resemblance of it, carrying the 
superficial marks of the original. A great number of indi- 
vidual Greeks found employment in the service, military 
and civil, of the Greco-Asiatic kings. Important social and 
political consequences turned upon the diffusion of the lan- 
guage, but the Hellenised Asiatic was still a foreigner, with 
Grecian speech, exterior varnish, and superficial manifes- 
tations. The world, as a whole, was a loser by the dis- 
appearance of the genuine article and the substitution of 
this spurious product. 

After the narrative of Alexander's exploits, two chapters 
close the account of Grecian affairs at home. Stirring pas- 
sages bestrew these chapters, and the author's characteristic 
handling crops out on notable occasions : not the least re- 
markable, perhaps, is the scene of Phocion's condemnation. 
But the end draws near. Demosthenes is sacrificed. Athens 
passes under an oligarchy ; she is a political nullity. The 
countrymen of Aristeides and Pericles have fallen into 
degrading servility and suppliant king-worship. "An his- 
torian accustomed to the Grecian world as described by 

h 2 



/ 



[100] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, feels that the life 
has departed from his subject, and, with sadness and 
humiliation, brings his narrative to a close." A chapter on 
the Sicilian and Italian Greeks ends the eventful narrative. 

The style of the '^History' has had a full share of 
criticism. Great merits have been conceded to it, while 
certain defects have been taken notice of. The author's 
character admits of being illustrated by the peculiarities of 
his language. Endowed with a great verbal memory, passing 
his life in the company and conversation of cultivated and 
refined society, well-read in English literature, he could 
not but attain a full command of the best English diction. 
His taste and resources were still farther improved by his 
familiarity with the choice literature of five other languages, 
Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian. He keenly appre- 
ciated the helleS'Iettres ; they constituted part of his pleasures 
all through life. 

It does not seem that he imitated, in his early compo- 
sitions, any one model. He contracted his own ideal of 
effective composition, which was, first of all, to be thoroughly 
intelligible ; next, to be forcible and pointed ; and, lastly, to 
be ele2:ant and refined. He had a few mannerisms, but no 
affectation. 

His vocabularv inclined to an excess of classical words, 
by which he gained superior precision and occasional terse- 
ness. He coined a good many words from Latin and Greek, 
such as autonomy, hegemony, gens, phratry, dikastery, hop- 
lite, demus, most of which are admitted as necessities, 
while several have been deemed superfluous. His compounds 
with '^ self " are characteristically numerous : self-agency^ 
self-sufficing, self-acting, self-judging, &c. 

Of the figures of Ehetoric, he freely indulged in similes 
and metaphors, of which he had a good command. His only 
other figurative device was the manipulation of abstract 
nouns and adjectives for brevity : — as " a standing protest 
against forward affirmation," " dilatory tactics," ^^ mature 
divine efficiency," " the negative vein." The bolder figures 



THE HISTORY OF GEEECE. [101] 



— epigram, hyperbole, interrogation, climax, are scarcely 
ever used. He has one notable epigram for the myth — 
*'a past that never was present." Antithesis, or pointed 
balance, so abundant in Macaulay, is entirely wanting. 

His sentences are generally simple and intelligible in 
arrangement; sometimes periodic, but more commonly loose. 
They are tolerably, but not studiously, various in plan ; and 
long and short are freely intermingled. Their flow is easy 
and unaffected. 

Of the expository qualities of style, precision and per- 
spicuity took precedence. Extreme simplicity, or the being 
intelligible to the lowest capacity through the employment 
of homely and familiar phrases, was not aimed at. 

As regards the emotional qualities, he could, on occasions, 
command strength and pathos alike, and both impart their 
charm to the * History.' Humour he never sought to attain. 
His touches of high poetic elegance, if not numerous, are 
sometimes exquisite in quality. 

The chief complaint against the style generally is 
that it is not continuously artistic ; and this must be ad- 
mitted. The ' remark is also made that, in the distribution 
of the materials, the author allows the discussions, au- 
thorities, and quotations, to hang like a weight on the 
narrative ; that he has both repetitions and dislocations. 
To all which the reply is, that his mind was occupied, in the 
first instance, with other objects than the making of a work 
of art : — the getting at truth by laboriously sifting in- 
sufficient materials, the elucidation of political principles, 
the inculcation of ethical and political lessons. There is a 
limit to the capacity of the greatest mind. Had he bestowed 
an additional quarter of a year on every volume, with an eye 
to the form and language solely, he might have improved 
the * History' as a composition; but it is doubtful whether 
this would have been the most useful occupation of his time. 
It was not his habit to re-write his works ; he did so readily, 
if he discovered anything defective in the matter or in the 
general arrangement ; but as regarded mere expression, he 



ii 



[102] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

was satisfied with the revision of the manuscript and the 
careful correcting of the proofs. 

The greatest virtue of a writer undoubtedly is 'to rise to 
the occasion, and this can fearlessly be predicated of Mr. 
Grote. 



In October 1847 appeared the Letters on Switzerland, printed 
first in the Spectator and afterwards in a small 8vo. volume. 
In August of that year Mr. Grote made an excursion to Swit- 
zerland, in order to observe, close at hand, the nearest modem 
analogue of the Grecian republics. His visit coincided ^^ith 
the crisis of the Swiss revolution. I quote from the Preface 
his own account of the purpose of the visit : — 

" The inhabitants of the twenty-two cantons of Switzer- 
land are interesting on every ground to the general intelli- 
gent public of Europe. But to one whose studies lie in the 
contemplation and interpretation of historical phenomena, 
they are especially instructive — partly from the many speci- 
alities and differences of race, language, religion, civilization, 
wealth, habits, &c., which distinguish one part .of the popula- 
tion from another, comprising, between the Ehine and the 
Alps, a miniature of all Europe, and exhibiting the fifteenth 
century in immediate juxtaposition with the nineteenth 
— partly from the free and unrepressed action of the people, 
which brings out such distinctive attributes in full relief 
and contrast. To myself in particular they present an addi- 
tional ground of interest from a certain political analogy 
(nowhere else to be found in Europe) with those who pro- 
minently occupy my thoughts, and on whose history I am 
still engaged — the ancient Greeks. 

" In listening not only to the debates in the Diet, but also 
to the violent expressions of opposite sentiment manifested 
throughout the country during the present summer, I felt 
a strong impulse to understand how such dispositions had 
arisen ; to construe the present in its just aspect as a sequel 
to the past: and to comprehend that past itself in con- 



LETTEES ON SWITZERLAND. [103] 

junction with the feelings whicli properly belong to it, not 
under the influence of feelings belonging to the present. 
The actual condition, and reasonable promise, of Swiss federal 
politics were different an 1841 and 1844, and have become 
again materially different in 1847. We have to study each 
period partly in itself, partly with reference to that which 
preceded it, and out of which it grew^ 

" A man must have little experience of historical pheno- 
mena to suppose that in any violent political contention all 
the right is likely to lie on one side and all the wrong on the 
other. I have not disguised my conviction that both the 
Swiss parties have committed wrong ; nor is my statement 
likely to give satisfaction to either of them : to show the pro- 
lific power of wrong deeds in generating their like, is, in my 
judgment one of the most important lessons of history." 

The Letters may be fairly regarded as a masterly unravel- 
ling of Swiss politics, in which the author traces the chain of 
events from the first inflammatory incident — the election of 
Dr. Strauss to a chair in the University of Zurich — and shows 
that the moving power throughout was the aggressive action 
of the Eoman Catholic Church. The work will remain as an 
interesting chapter on Swiss history, and as one of the many 
narratives illustrating the disturbance of civil politics by the 
cry of '' Eeligion in danger." The writer holds the scales 
with the hand of Justice herself, showing at what points both 
parties overstepped the bounds of political morality. His 
dread of foreign intervention, and his strong condemnation 
and distrust of M. Guizot, are very expressive of his way of 
looking at foreign politics. The familiar spectacle of the 
great Powers overbearing the small was to him a source 
of unmitigated repugnance. 



[104] CHAEACTER AND WRITINGS. 



CHAPTER V. 

WORK ON PLATO. 

In May 1865, nine years after the completion of the ^His- 
tory of Greece/ appeared ' Plato and the other Companions 
of Socrates.' 

The Preface puts the reader at once into possession of the 
author's leading aims and peculiarities. His point of de- 
parture, in rendering an account of the Platonic Philosophy, 
is Socrates himself. Connected with him is the large inter- 
mixture of the negative vein in Plato's ^Dialogues/ which the 
author for the first time brings into the foreground. The 
setting forth of the negative side of all doctrines — the argu- 
ments against as well as the aro^uments for — he considers 
as not merely a distinction of these two philosophers, but as 
an essential of philosophy itself. Discussion, polemic, dis- 
sent, are the marks whereby the habits of the philosopher are 
distinguished from the unreasoned acquiescence of the mul- 
titude in the traditional and prevalent beliefs. It was, more- 
over, a trait of Socrates, maintained in one half of the 
Platonic Dialogues, to terminate a discussion in a purely 
negative result, to unsettle without settling. It was a 
farther following up of the same peculiarity in Plato to 
start different, and even opposing, views in his different com- 
positions, and to leave behind him inconsistencies never 
reconciled. The perception of these inconsistencies has led 
critics either to force them into harmony by subtle con- 
siderations, or to make a choice among the Dialogues, accept- 
ing some as the real Platonic comjwsitions and rejecting the 
others as spurious. Mr. Grote, on the contrary, recognises 
such inconsistencies as facts, and as very interesting facts, of 



WORK OX PLATO. [105] 

the pliilosophical character of his author. Once more, the 
career of Plato shows two stages, the first marked by the 
confessed ignorance and philosophical negative of Socrates ; 
the last, with the peremptory, dictatorial, affirmative of 
Lycurgus. 

The Preface closes with the following reflections : — " The 
philosophy of the fourth century B.C. is peculiarly valuable 
and interesting, not merely from its intrinsic speculative 
worth — from the originality and grandeur of its two principal 
heroes — from its coincidence with the full display of dramatic, 
rhetorical, artistic genius — but also from a fourth reason not 
unimportant — because it is purely Hellenic ; preceding the 
development of Alexandria and the amalgamation of Oriental 
views of thought with the inspirations of the Academy or 
the Lyceum. The Orontes and the Jordan had not yet 
begun to flow westward and to impart their own colour to 
the waters of Attica and Latium. Not merely the real 
world, but also the ideal world, present to the minds of Plato 
and Aristotle, were purely Hellenic. Even during the cen- 
tury immediately following, this had ceased to be fully true 
in respect to the philosophers of Athens ; and it became less 
and less true with each succeeding century. New foreign 
centres of rhetoric and literature — Asiatic and Alexandrian 
Hellenism — were fostered into importance by regal encourage- 
ment. Plato and Aristotle are thus the special representatives 
of genuine Hellenic philosophy. The remarkable intellectual 
ascendency acquired by them in their own day, and main- 
tained over succeeding centuries, was one main reason why 
the Hellenic vein was enabled so long to maintain itself, 
though in impoverished condition, against adverse influences 
from the East, ever increasing in force. Plato and Aristotle 
outlasted all their Pagan successors — successors at once less 
purely Hellenic and less highly gifted. And when Saint 
Jerome, near 750 years after the decease of Plato, com- 
memorated with triumph the victory of unlettered Chris- 
tians over the accomplishments and genius of Paganism, he 
illustrated the magnitude of the victory by singling out 



[106] 



^tHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 



Plato and Aristotle as the representatives of vanquished 
philosophy." 

It has been a very common remark that Mr. Grote, from 
his peculiar turn of mind and his doctrinal views, was not 
the most qualified person to comment upon Plato, while he 
would be quite in his element with Aristotle. The remark 
is somewhat infelicitous and misplaced; the semblance of 
foundation for it being both insignificant and unreal. The 
interest and admiration felt by him for the Platonic writings 
as a whole could not be surpassed by anyone, although he 
differed from manv as to the nature of Plato's merits. Far 
from being unpoetical in his own tastes, he was all his life a 
lover of poetry ; he could have said with Plato, " I myself 
might have become a tragic poet." He relished the dramatic 
beauties of the ^ Dialogues,' and emulated in his own style the 
happy illustrative similes of his author. But the rack could 
not have extorted from him the admission that poetry is 
truth, that emotion is evidence. For imagination working 
in its own sphere, and also as lending itself to the elucidation 
and adornment of the results of the scientific reason, he had 
the greatest respect ; for imagination taking the place of 
reason he had no respect, whether in Plato, in Aristotle, or 
in any other man. 

The work begins with an exhaustive review of early Greek 
Philosophy, from Thales to Democritus. A second chapter 
contains an interesting commentary on the position and points 
of view of these primitive thinkers, and prepares the way for 
the next stage of Grecian thought, by the remark that com- 
mon to them all was the absence of Dialectic, or systematic 
negative criticism. The inventor of dialectic, we are told by 
Aristotle, was Zeno ; and his extant philosophy and method 
are described by Mr. Grote with a detail corresponding to 
his sense of the momentous nature of the innovation. The 
opening of the negative vein imparts from this time forward 
a new character to Grecian philosophy — a character never 
present in the most advanced Oriental speculation. The 
positive and negative forces, emanating from different 



WORK ON PLATO. [107] 

aptitudes of the human mind, are, henceforth, both of them 
actively developed, and in strenuous antithesis to each other. 
It is not enough to propound a theory in obscure, oracular 
metaphors and half-intelligible aphorisms, like Heracleitus, 
or in verse, more or less impressive, like Parmenides or 
Empedocles. Every theory must be sustained by proofs-, 
guarded against objections, defended against imputations of 
inconsistency, compared with other rival theories. From 
this quarter we have to approach both Socrates and Plato. 

The life of Plato is next reviewed. In making the most 
of the scanty notices preserved, Mr. Grote is careful to place 
before the reader the political surrounding of the period 
from his nineteenth to his twenty-fifth year (409-403), a 
period of extraordinary disaster for Athens, and involving, 
among other things, the severest strain upon all able-bodied 
citizens for military service. Philosophical study must have 
been very much restricted ; moreover, as Plato entertained at 
first a political ambition, he would not think of philosophy 
until he failed in that object. His studious life, when it 
began, had no marked interruption but the episode of his 
Sicilian visits. He was the founder of the earliest establish- 
ment for philosophical teaching — a building with grounds, 
lecture-room, and library. This was the Academy. 

In chapter iv. the author considers the Platonic Canon. 
Both ancients and moderns were at one as to the real works 
of Plato, down to the end of the last century. During the 
present century, the genuineness of many of the alleged works 
has been called in question: in consequence of which, Mr. 
Grote examines at length the external evidence for the 
received canon, which evidence he regards as peculiarly strong, 
being far above what we possess for the works of Demosthenes, 
Euripides, Aristophanes, Isocrates, or Lysias. The great point 
in the argument is the perpetuation of the Academy, Avith 
its library, up to the date of the foundation of the Alexandrine 
Collection, which collection would acquire a well-guaranteed 
set of the genuine Platonic writings j while our present canon 
rests on the authority of that collection and its librarians. 



[108] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

In a separate chapter, Mr. Grote considers the grounds of 
the recent objections to the time-honoured canon. The new 
turn was given by Schleiermacher, who began by assum- 
ing as fundamental postulates — first, a systematic unity of 
scheme and purpose, running through all the Dialogues ; 
secondly, an intentional order, with a view to this scheme. 
Upon these two assumptions he classifies the Dialogues, 
rejecting some that do not fall within the scheme. He is 
followed by other critics, who, without agreeing altogether in 
his assumptions, are yet more sweeping in their rejections. 
Against all these critics Mr. Grote produces reasons that seem 
irresistible. The different theories laid down respecting 
the general and systematic purposes of Plato, he regards 
as uncertified and gratuitous ; the " internal reasons " are only 
another phrase for expressing each critic's opinion respecting 
Plato as a philosopher and a writer. 

*' Considering that Plato's period of philosophical composi- 
tion extended over fifty years, and that the circumstances of 
his life are most imperfectly known to us, it is surely 
hazardous to limit the range of his varieties on the faith of a 
critical repugnance, not merely subjective and fallible, but 
withal entirely of modern growth : to assume, as basis of 
reasoning, the admiration raised by a few of the first dia- 
logues — and then to argue that no composition inferior to 
this admired type, or unlike to it in doctrine or handling, 
can possibly be the work of Plato. ' The Minos, Theages, 
Epistolae, Epinomis, &c, are unworthy of Plato : nothing so 
inferior in excellence can have been composed by him. No 
dialogue can be admitted as genuine which contradicts 
another dialogue, or which advocates any low or incorrect or 
un-Platonic doctrine. No dialogue can pass which is adverse 
to the general purpose of Plato as an improver of morality 
and a teacher of the doctrine of Ideas.' On such grounds as 
these we are called upon to reject various dialogues ; and 
there is nothing upon which, generally speaking, so much 
stress is laid as upon inferior excellence. For my part, I 
cannot recognise any of them as sufficient grounds of excep- 



WOEK ON PLATO. [109] 

tion. I have no difficulty in belieying not merely that Plato 
(like Aristophanes) produced many successive novelties — 
^ not at all similar one to the other, and all clever' — but 
also that among these novelties there were inferior dialogues 
as well as superior : that in different dialogues he worked out 
different, even contradictory, points of view — and among 
them some which critics declare to be low and objectionable ; 
that we have among his works unfinished fragments and 
abandoned sketches, published without order, and perhaps 
only after his death." 

Mr. Jowett's remarks on this perplexed theme are as 
follows : — 

" I cannot agree with Mr. Grote in admitting as genuine 
all the writings commonly attributed to Plato in antiquity^ 
any more than with Schaarschmidt and some other German 

critics, who reject nearly half of them On the other 

hand, Mr. Grote trusts mainly to the Alexandrian canon. 
But I hardly think that we are justified in attributing much 
weiofht to the authority of the Alexandrian librarians in an 
age when there was no regular publication of books and 
every temptation to forge them, and in which the writings 
of a school were naturally attributed to the founder of the 
school. And even without intentional fraud there was an 
inclination to believe rather than to inquire. Would Mr. 
Grote accept as genuine all the writings which he finds in 
the lists of learned ancients attributed to Hippocrates, to 
Xenophon, to Aristotle? The Alexandrian canon of the 
Platonic writings is deprived of credit by the admission of 
the ' Epistles,' which are not only unworthy of Plato, but in 
several places plagiarised from him and flagrantly at vari- 
ance with historical fact." 

To the query of Mr. Jowett, '^ Would Mr. Grote accept 
as genuine all the writings attributed to Hippocrates," &c., 
an answer was given in anticipation, grounded on the special 
preservation of the Platonic writings in the library of the 
Academy, no similar advantage belonging to the other writers. 

Mr. Jowett rejects, not without hesitation, Lesser Hippias, 



[110] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

First Alcibiades, and Menexenus. He considers it right, 
however, to give them a place in his work. He is thus sub- 
stantially at one with Mr. Grote on the Dialogues, but not 
on the Epistles, whose genuineness is supported by Mr. Grote, 
both in the ' History ' and in the * Plato,' by arguments of 
no small cogency, which we should like to see Mr. Jowett 
answer in detail. Bentley, the crusher of spurious Epistles, 
allowed the Epistles of Plato: his extraordinary learning 
did not enable him to detect in them " flagrant violations 
of historical fact." Subsequent scholars, while denying their 
genuineness, allow them to be the work of early and 
well-informed authors. The seventh epistle especially is, by 
Boeckh, considered genuine, and by Ueberweg, the work of a 
well-informed contemporary. Cicero, Plutarch, Aristeides, etc., 
all attest facts on the authority of these Epistles. The chief 
objections to them by critics generally are founded on their 
being unworthy of Plato. Mr. Grote does not think himself 
competent to determine a priori what the style of Plato's 
letters may have been ; he has no difficulty in believing that 
Plato may have expressed himself with as much mysticism 
and obscurity as we now read in the second and seventh 
epistles : he is not surprised at the allusions to details which 
critics who look upon him altogether as a spiritual person, 
disallow as mean and unwortliy. 

It is curiously remarked by Ueberweg that Mr. Grote's 
'^ accepting as genuine all the dialogues accredited by Thra- 
syllus has caused him to lose sight of tJie essential unity 
present in Plato^s thought and u'orJcs, and to admit in its stead 
a midtifariousness abounding in change and contradiction,^^ 
The real fact is, Mr. Grote is not blinded by his acceptance 
of the canon of Thrasyllus. He sees no possibility of gaining 
the " unity " by any number of rejections ; he has followed 
the upholders of unity through all their clashing experiments, 
and found only confusion and contradiction. 

The regaining of unity and consistency in Plato's WTitings, 
by rejecting a sufficient number of dialogues, involves an 
entirely new theory of the tactics of a forger of writings, 



WOEK ON PLATO. [Ill] 

namely, that he should contradict all the leading doctrines of 
the author imitated. Now, although it is one of the usual 
marks of a spurious writing to contain inconsistencies unfelt 
by the writer, but detected by well-informed critics, it is 
surely not the practice of any forger to make such open 
and vital contradictions as those existing between the sup- 
posed spurious and the real dialogues of Plato, How should 
a forger of epistles of Paul expect to succeed by maintaining 
a series of doctrines in marked opposition to all the charac- 
teristic views of the apostle ? There is but one conceivable 
situation suitable to this policy : namely, where there was 
a wish to gain the w^eight of a great name to certain views 
special to the forger, and where all external circumstances 
were so far favourable to the reception of the forgery as to 
outweigh the internal discordance. 

In chapter vi., entitled "Platonic Compositions Generally," 
Mr. Grote gives his views as to the method of Plato. 
Although on isolated points others have agreed with him, 
yet the general strain of the criticisms on Plato's plan and 
purpose has the character of novelty. The first impression 
produced by the Platonic writings is their exceeding variety; 
no one epithet can describe them all. Some critics in an- 
tiquity described Plato as essentially a searcher or inquirer, 
and as never reaching any certain result. This is going too 
far ; he is sceptical in some dialogues, dogmatical in others. 
Again, Aristotle characterised his style of writing as some- 
thing between poetry and prose, and declared that the 
doctrine of Ideas obtained all its plausibility from metaphors. 
This is also true to a certain extent ; many of the dialogues 
possess a degree of poetic exuberance condemned as exces- 
sive by contemporary and subsequent critics, who had before 
them, for comparison, the most finished compositions of 
Greece. Moreover, the power of his dramatic situations 
would have carried away the prizes at the Dionysiac festivals, 
if he had followed the drama as a profession. But these 
poetic attributes are not found in all the Dialogues. Plato 
was sceptic, dogmatist, religious mystic, and inquisitor. 



[112] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

mathematician, philosopher, poet (erotic as well as sati- 
rical), rhetor, artist, all in one — or at least, all in turn, — 
throughout the fifty years of his philosophical life. So 
much appears in his published Dialogues. But he was a 
lecturer besides, and of his lectures we have no record, ex- 
cepting only a tantalizing observation of Aristotle. The 
only occasions where he lays aside the pen of " Imaginary 
Conversations " and speaks in his own person, are in the 
much repudiated EjDistles, from which Mr. Grote brings 
before us some singular views as to the mode of communi- 
cating knowledge. He peculiarly disclaims written com- 
positions, and regards oral communications and debate, 
coupled with intense meditation apart, as the only effective 
mode of intellectual illumiDation. Also his standard of 
mastery of any subject was that the learner shall be able to 
endure from others, and himself apply to others, a Socratic 
elenchus, or cross-examination as to all the difficulties. 

In classifying the Dialogues, our author starts from one 
of the divisions given by Thrasyllus — the two-fold division 
of Dialogues of Search and Dialogues of Exposition, setting 
aside the Apolo^T of Socrates and the Menexenus as com- 
positions apart. Deviating from Thrasyllus in the detailed 
enumeration, he gives nineteen Dialogues of Search and 
fourteen of Exposition. The most elaborate example of 
Search is Thesetetus. Among Expository dialogues, Timaeus 
is a marked example, being devoid of all negative criticism. 
Many are not purely of either character. 

Mr. Grote's strong point, as is already apparent, lies in his 
rendering of the Search Dialogues. This is a species of com- 
position now rare and strange : modern readers do not 
understand what is meant by publishing an inquiry without 
any result — a story without an end. To settle a question 
and finish with it — to get rid of the debate, as if it were 
a troublesome temporary necessity — is not what Plato 
desires ; the torpedo shock of conscious ignorance is what 
he, after Socrates, aims at imparting. He tells us himself 
that he is a searcher, and has not made up his own mind ; 



WORK OX PLATO. [113] 

critics generally will not believe him ; Mr. Grote does. Most 
historians of ancient philosophy fail to realise, because 
themselves disliking, the process of mere negation. They 
would tolerate it in small doses, and as an aid to affir- 
mation; requiring that, when you deprive a man of one 
affirmative solution, you must be prepared at once with 
another. ^^ Le Koi est Mort ; Vive le Eoi ! " the dogmatic 
throne must never be empty. The claims of the objector 
must be satisfied before the affirmer can be held solvent. 

For the mere evoking of literary charm, Plato was attached 
to the polemic form. He feels a strong interest in the pro- 
cess of enquiry, in the debate jper se ; and he presumes the 
like interest in his readers. He has no wish to shorten the 
process; he claims it as the privilege of philosophical dis- 
cussion that the speakers are not tied to time by the 
Klepsydra. And he really succeeded in inspiring readers 
with something of his own interest in the dialectical process. 
The charm imparted by him to the process of philosophising 
is one main cause of the preservation of his writings from the 
terrible shipwreck that has overtaken so much of the abun- 
dant contemporary literature. 

But the most important consideration, in Mr. Grote's view, 
still remains. It is the special ground assigned by Socrates 
for his negative procedure, namely, that chronic and deep- 
seated malady of the human mind, the false persuasion of 
knowledge. To this state Socrates applied his Elenchus, 
making people explain what they meant by Justice, Tem- 
perance, Courage, Law, and other familiar terms. The 
answers elicited were simple expressions of the ordinary 
prevalent belief in matters wherein each community pos- 
sesses established dogmas, laws, customs, sentiments, fashions, 
points of view belonging to itself; many of them diametri- 
cally opposed to what is accepted in other communities. 
There can be no philosophy unless these consecrated opinions 
are to be freely canvassed and disturbed. Philosophy is thus 
the proclaimed enemy of orthodoxy ; the philosopher, by the 

i 




[114] CHAKACTER AND WRITINGS. 

law of his being, is a dissenter. Accordingly the indictment 
against Socrates ran thus : '^ Socrates commits crime, inas- 
much as he does not believe in the gods in whom the city 
believes, but introduces new religious beliefs." Nomos (Law 
and Custom) King of All (to borrow the phrase cited by 
Herodotus from Pindar) exercises plenary power, spiritual as 
well as temporal, over individual minds; moulding the 
emotions as well as the intellect according to the local type ; 
determining everyone's sentiments, belief, and predispositions 
to believe ; fashioning thought, speech, and points of view, 
no less than action ; yet reigning under the appearance of 
habitual self-suggested tendency. Never before did King 
Nomos meet with such an adversary as Socrates. 

In these very decided views as to the Platonic position in 
the Dialogues of Search, Mr. Grote has as yet very little 
following. Mr. Jowett, alluding to the Gorgias, one of the 
Dialogues emphasised by our author as putting forward the 
right of dissent or private judgment, regards this mode of 
stating the question as really opposed both to the spirit of Plato 
and of ancient philosophy generally ; so far from advocating 
toleration or free thought, Plato (in the LaWs) has laid him- 
self open to the charge of intolerance ; no speculations had 
as yet arisen respecting the liberty of prophesying. 

Now, it must be distinctly allowed that Mr. Grote, being 
himself an ardent apostle of free enquiry, is naturally pre- 
disposed to find allies among the greatest of mankind. He 
may, therefore, somewhat overstrain tlie amount of support 
lent to individual freedom by Socrates and Plato. Yet his 
case is far stronger than Mr. Jowett would lead us to suppose. 
As regards Socrates, it is seemingly irresistible. In Plato it 
does not rest on the Gorgias alone. There, indeed, does 
Mr. Grote find the remarkable expression put into the mouth 
of Socrates: "You, Polus, bring against me the authority of 
the multitude, as well as of the most eminent citizens, all 
upholding your view. But I, one man standing here alone, 
do not agree with you." In the Pha^don, also, Socrates is 
made to give a dying testimony to the freedom of debate : 



WOEK ON PLATO. [115] 

*^ If I appear to you to affirm anything truly, attend to me ; 
l)ut, if not, oppose me with all your powers of reasoning." A 
very emphatic passage to the same effect occurs in the 
Politicus, the chief spokesmen being made to complain of 
the interdict maintained against adverse criticism of the 
legal and consecrated doctrines. 

Mr. Grote admits the change that had come over Plato 
when he wrote the Laws. Instead of adducing it, however, 
to neutralise the animated protests in favour of liberty in 
the Gorgias and the Phsedon, so as to show that Plato, 
taken as a whole, was indifferent in the matter, he deplores it 
as the most repulsive feature of Plato's senility. 

After all, Mr. Jowett cannot be far off from Mr. Grote's 
views, when he allows himself to represent Plato " as assert- 
ing the duty of the one wise and true man to dissent from 
the folly and falsehood of the many." 

Occasions necessarily arise for adverting to Plato's treat- 
ment of the Sophists, on which modern historians of philo- 
sophy have bettered the instruction. The author repeats, 
that the charges made against the Sophists (as well as 
the Megarics), namely corrupting youth, perverting truth 
and morality, by making the worse appear the better reason, 
subverting established beliefs, — were all urged against Plato 
himself by his contemporaries, and indeed against all the 
philosophers indiscriminately. They are outbursts of feeling 
natural to the practical, orthodox citizen, who represents the 
common sense of the time and place ; declaring his anti- 
pathy to those speculative, freethinking innovations of theory, 
which challenge the prescriptive maxims of traditional cus- 
tom by a theoretical standard. In point of fact, the persons 
commonly called Sophists did far less violence to the 
orthodox sentiments than either Socrates or Plato. Indeed 
Plato's dislike to the Sophists was part and parcel of his 
dislike to the general multitude of Athenians. In the Re- 
public, he says emphatically, that the Sophists teach nothing 
but the opinions of the multitude, and call these wisdom. 

Mr. Jowett so far agrees with Mr. Grote tliat the Sophists 

i 2 



[116] CHARACTER AXD WRITINGS. 

did not, as so generally alleged, corrupt the youth ; the 
Athenian youth were no more corrupted in the time of 
Demosthenes than in the time of Pericles. He puts the 
question, however, — -'^ Would an Athenian, as Mr. Grote 
supposes, in the fifth century before Christ:, have included 
Socrates and Plato, as well as Gorgias and Protagoras, under 
the speciiic class of Sophists ? " and answers ** No." '* The 
man of genius, the great original thinker, the disinterested 
seeker after truth, the master of repartee whom no one ever 
defeated in an argument, was separated, even in the mind of 
the vulgar Athenian, by an ' interval which no geometry can 
express,' from the balancer of sentences, the interpreter and 
reciter of the poets, the divider of the meanings of words, 
the teacher of rhetoric, the professor of morals and manners." 
Kow, there was one marked peculiarity of the Sophists : they 
received regular pay; Socrates and Plato merely accepted 
presents. But in the eyes of both Socrates and Plato, 
teaching for pay was exceedingly discreditable ; we are not 
told to what length the Athenian public shared in this anti- 
pathy. As to any of the other points mentioned, it is exceed- 
ingly difficult to discover why the vulgar Athenian should 
set up Socrates and Plato as immeasurably superior to the 
general body of teachers, called Sophists. Mr. Grote thinks 
highly of the Athenians, but he utterly refuses to accredit 
them with a fine sense of what distinguished the true philo- 
sopher from the eloquent repeater of commonplace. 

It is in the present work that Mr. Grote has found oppor- 
tunities of unfolding a number of his own philosophical views. 
He has indicated his tenets in some of the highest questions 
of Psychology, Logic, Ethics, and Metaphysics. I shall here 
briefly sketch his leading positions as a philosophical 
tliinker. 

In adhering to experience as the sole fountain of legi- 
timate belief, and to utility, as the sole criterion of what is 
morally right, he was thorough-going and consistent. He 
disclaimed the criterion of Intuition or Instinct in botli 
spheres ; and, incidentally in commenting on Plato and on 



WOEK OjST PLATO. [117] 

Aristotle, has argued with no little force in favour of his own 
side. He embraced with eagerness several of the most 
important aspects of the gi-eat law or doctrine of Eelativity, 
respecting which many sagacious glimpses appear in ancient 
philosophy. Mr. Jowett speaks too lightly of the import of 
this doctrine, when he calls it a truism of the present time. 
No doubt it is well enough recognised in a few familiar appli- 
cations such as pleasures and pains, fine art, and some aspects 
of knowledge ; but I doubt if in its lull compass, any great 
number of persons w^ould either understand it or tolerate all 
its legitimate consequences. Yet it is one of those cardinal 
doctrines that must be true universallv, or not at all. 

It is in the exposition of Aristotle's Categories that the 
author takes note of Eelativity as the essential fact of all 
Knowdedge or Cognition. Every fact or quality exists only 
with reference to some other fact or quality, as its correla- 
tive or opposite — light, dark : cold, hot ; up, down ; wise, 
foolish. This is the most fundamental of all the aspects of 
the doctrine. 

A more restricted but exceedingly momentous aspect is 
largely dwelt on by Mr. Grote ; the correlation of subject and 
object in perception; the mutual implication of the per- 
cipient mind with the thing perceived — the percipiens and the 
jpercejptum. His mode of handling this antithesis in connec- 
tion with the Berkeleian idealism is most fully shown in one 
of the essays in the present volume (p. 332). 

The mode of Eelativity most forcibly stated in the ' Plato,' 
is the relativity of truth or belief to the affirming or believing 
subject. This is dwelt upon in the commentary on The^- 
TETUS, as the most probable rendering of the Protagorean 
dictum — homo mensura, "man is a measure to himself." 
As he understands the doctrine, Mr. Grote is thoroughly 
at one with Protagoras, although the view was impugned 
by both Plato and Aristotle. He attributes no small import- 
ance to the doctrine ; it being, in his opinion, the philoso- 
phical formula of the right of private judgment, as opposed 
to the assumed infallibility of some one man or body of men. 



[118] CHAEACTEE AND WETTINGS. 



^ 



In this grand chef-d'oeuvre of Plato, Mr. Grote's philo- 
sophical handling everywhere appears to full advantage, and 
the student will find a rewarding exercise in comparing him 
with the other commentators on the dialogue. 

His opposition to the a jpriori philosophy is stated in 
the discussion on the meanings of Cause, in the Phsedon. 
Following Hume and Brown, he understands '*by causes 
nothing more than phenomenal antecedents constant and 
unconditional, ascertainable by experience and induction." 

In connexion with the Protagoras, the Gorgias, and the 
Eepublic he sets forth certain ethical points of view that he 
lays great stress upon. In Protagoras, Plato affirms the 
doctrine that good and evil are identical with pleasurable 
and painful, and that virtue is an affair of measurement and 
computation. Mr. Grote, in like manner, holds that there is 
no intelligible standard of reference for application of the 
terms good and evil, except the tendency to produce happi- 
ness or misery ; if this standard be rejected, ethical debate 
ceases to be a matter of rational discussion, and becomes 
only an enunciation of the different sentiments, authoritative 
and self-justifying, that are prevalent in each community. 
An important qualification, however, has been omitted by 
Plato. His measurement omits to take account of man as a 
member of society, and to value the pleasures and pains of 
others. This is one of the defects of Plato's ethical theory. 
In Gorgias he takes a totally different view of virtue — the 
preservation of a high tone of mental health. Vice he 
treats as a kind of disease, and the eradication of this taint 
or disease is what the virtuous man must aim at. Mr. 
Grote tries to give a meaning to what lies under this high- 
flown metaphor ; remarking how our being is divided 
between the transient impressions made upon us, and a 
certain permanent element, namely, the established cha- 
racter, habits, dispositions, intellectual requirements — the 
accumulated mental capital of the past life. This permanent 
element must be kept in good condition ; we must not for 
the sake of present and transitory pleasure impair the 



WORK ON PLATO. [119] 

* 

general stock of pleasurable accumulations. Still, the per- 
manent itself derives all its substance and value from the 
regard to pleasures and the avoidance of pains. 

In the first book of the Republic, which is occupied with 
a stirring polemic on the nature of justice, Plato, in oppo- 
sition to the received opinions of mankind, declares that 
justice is a good thing in itself, without regard to the 
consequences. This is the first statement of the doctrine, 
afterwards insisted on by the Stoics, and repeated in modern 
ethics, that virtue is all-sufiScient to the happiness of the 
virtuous agent, whatever be his fate in other respects. As a 
counter thesis, Mr. Grote strikingly illustrates the essential 
reciprocity of virtuous conduct — one of the many phases of 
the Law of Eelativity. Plato has endeavoured to accredit a 
fiction misrepresenting the constant phenomena and standing 
conditions of social life. Among these conditions, reciprocity 
of services is fundamental. Each individual has both duties 
and rights : each is required to be just to others : others are 
required to be just to him. The rights and obligations of 
any one towards the rest are inseparably correlated ; without 
this the terms " right " and '^ obligation " are void of 
meaning. 

In Plato we have the first faint indications of what is now 
called Teleology, or a science of Ends, as distinct from the 
sciences of the Order of Nature. Aristotle was more explicit ; 
he being the first to shape the practical sciences of ethics, 
politics, and rhetoric, into whose definition there entered a 
statement of the End. Mr. Grote, at an early period of his 
studies, worked out this conception of the practical sciences, 
and I believe instigated Mr. Mill to compose that striking 
chapter, added to the second edition of his Logic, entitled 
' The Logic of Practice.' 



[120] CHARACTER A^B WRITINGS. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

WORK ON ARISTOTLE. 

Mr. Grote began the ' Aristotle ' in liis seventy-first year. 
His preparatory studies had been ample, including a life-long 
acquaintance with most of the Aristotelian treatises. All 
his accumulated knowledge on ancient Greece as a whole, 
and his persistent devotion to philosopliy in its modern as 
well as its ancient phases, could be now brought to bear on 
his concluding and most laborious task. 

That his unremitted exertions for six years at an ad- 
vanced age should terminate in a fragment only, is matter 
of lasting regret, but not of astonishment. The difficulties of 
the subject are great; and his mode of dealing with it, 
combining lucid interpretation with critical comparison, 
could cost nothing less than a protracted effort. Ten years 
of his prime would have scarcely sufSced to complete the 
projected survey of Aristotle and his contemporaries, as a 
parallel to Plato. ^ 

The two volumes that have been published are mainly 
occupied with the logical treatises of the great philosopher. 
Prefixed to the account of these are two chapters — one on 
the life of Aristotle, the other on the Canon. 

The extant notices of Aristotle's career are very un- 
satisfactory. The facts are few, and many of them doubtful 
from conflicting testimonies. The biographer's task is chiefly 
made up of the sifting of authorities, and the comparing of 
the statements with the history of the time as otherwise 
known. 

The opening paragraph deserves to be quoted, as a bird's- 



W©RK ON ARISTOTLE. [121] 

eye view of the situation of philosophy in the Aristotelian 
age : — 

" In my preceding work, ^ Plato and the Other Companions 
of Sokrates/ I described a band of philosophers differing 
much from each other, but all emanating from Sokrates as 
common intellectual progenitor ; all manifesting themselves 
wholly or principally in the composition of dialogues ; and 
all living in an atmosphere of Hellenic freedom, as yet 
untroubled by any overruling imperial ascendency from 
without. From that band, among whom Plato is facile 
jprincejoSy I now proceed to another, among whom the like 
pre-eminence belongs to Aristotle. This second band knew 
the Sokratic stimulus only as a historical tradition ; they 
gradually passed, first from the Sokratic or Platonic dialogue 
— dramatic, colloquial, cross-examining — to the Aristotelian 
dialogue, semi-dramatic, rhetorical, counter-expository; and 
next to formal theorising, ingenious solution and divination 
of special problems, historical criticism and abundant collec- 
tions of detailed facts : moreover, they were witnesses of the 
extinction of freedom in Hellas, and of the rise of the Mace- 
donian kingdom out of comparative nullity to the highest 
pinnacle of supremacy and mastership. Under the suc- 
cessors of Alexander, this extraneous supremacy, inter- 
meddling and dictatorial, not only overruled the political 
movements of the Greeks, but also influenced powerfully the 
position and working of their philosophers ; and would have 
become at once equally intermeddling even earlier, under 
Alexander himself, had not his whole time and personal 
energy been absorbed by insatiable thirst for Eastern con- 
quests, ending with an untimely death." 

Among the most interesting aspects of the philosopher's 
life are those opened up by Mr. Grote, through the con- 
temporary history. While attending the school of Plato, he 
contracted intimacy with a fellow-pupil, Hermeias, a man of 
great ability and energy, who became despot of two little 
towns in Asia Minor, Atarneus and Assos (opposite the 
island of Lesbos). In consequence of a hurt when a child, 



[122] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

lie was known to be a eunu'cli, and had become the slave of 
the prior despot of Atarneus. On Plato's death, Aristotle 
left Athens and accepted an invitation to reside with 
Hermeias, during which residence he married Pythias, the 
despot's niece. The happy intimacy^ was put an end to by 
the treachery of the Persian general in command of the 
neighbouring region, who decoyed Hermeias into his grasp 
and sent him up to the Persian king, by whom he was put to 
death. Aristotle's deep grief is permanently recorded in a § 
hymn or paean composed to the memory of his friend. The 
Persians took possession of the towns of Hermeias, and 
Aristotle went to Mitylene. His next recorded movement is 
to the Macedonian court, as tutor to the youthful Alexander; 
an appointment partly owing (we may suppose) to his 
father's having been Philip's court physician, and partly to 
his own already acquired reputation for philosophy. His 
residence at Pella, the Macedonian capital, and his instruc- 
tions to Alexander, continued, with occasional interruptions, 
till Alexander's accession to the throne in 336 B.C. In the 
year following, which saw the completion of the preparations 
for invading Persia, he went to Athens, and opened a new 
school of philosophy, as a rival to the Academy, still kept 
up by the successors to Plato ; in that school he spent the 
remaining thirteen years of his life. Apart from his philo- 
sophic teaching and pursuits, he had by no means an easy 
time. He was under Macedonian patronage ; he was still 
consulted by Alexander, and maintained a constant corre- 
spondence with Antipater, Alexander's deputy or viceroy 
in the government of Macedonia and its dependencies. He 
was thus in a position of antagonism to the sentiments of 
the majority of the Athenian public. 

" It will thus appear, that though all the preserved 
writings of Aristotle are imbued with a thoroughly inde- 
pendent spirit of theorising contemplation and lettered 
industry, uncorrupted by any servility or political bias — yet 
his position during the twelve years between 335-323 B.C. 
inevitably presented him to the Athenians as the Mace- 



WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [123] 

donising philosopher, parallel with Phokion as the Macedon- 
ising politician, and in pointed antithesis to Xenokrates at 
the Academy, who was attached to the deraocratical consti- 
tution, and refused kingly presents. Besides that enmity 
which he was sure to incur, as an acute and self-thinking 
philosopher, from theology and the other anti-philosophical 
veins in the minds of ordinary men, Aristotle thus became 
the object of unfriendly sentiment from many Athenian 
patriots, who considered the school of Plato generally as 
hostile to popular liberty, and who had before them examp^p s 
of individual Platonists, ruling their respective cities with a 
sceptre forcibly usurped." 

The death of Alexander at Babylon, in June 323 B.C., 
came upon the world with a shock : and gave hopes of 
deliverance to enslaved Greece. There was an anti-Mace- 
donian rising at Athens ; Phocion and the other Macedonian 
leaders went for safety to Antipater ; and Aristotle's enemies 
thought the moment opportune for an onslaught on him. 
Following the Socratic precedent, the chief priest of the 
Eleusinian temple entered against him an indictment for 
impiety. The grounds of the indictment were peculiar; 
consisting mainly of the Hymn to Hermeias, and the in- 
scription on a statue to Hermeias at Delphi. To this 
was added the citation of certain heretical doctrines from 
his published writings, of which the chief seems to have 
been a declaration against the efficacy of prayers and sacri- 
fices. On this curious indictment Mr. Grote remarks that 
the hymn or paean in honour of Hermeias would be more 
offensive to the feelings of an ordinary Athenian than any 
philosophical dogma extracted from the cautious prose com- 
positions of Aristotle. Such hymns had been previously 
composed in honour of individual Greeks by Pindar and 
others; the same lofty and exaggerated comparison to 
deities had been indulged in: yet the searching eye of 
the historian of Greece discloses a difference. Hermeias 
was a compound of three enormities — a eunuch, a slave, and 
a despot. He was not a despot pure and simple, but a 



[124] CHARACTEE AND WRITINGS. 

eunuch-despot beginning from a slave; while there wa^ 
no redeeming public exploit that would have softened the 
harshness of the combination. A groundwork of political 
antipathy, overlaid by such a charge, gave Aristotle small 
chance at that moment; he bowed to the storm, which he 
knew could not last, retired from Athens, and would have 
soon returned, but for his death. A sentence of his com- 
posed defence is preserved, wherein he rebuts the charge of 
deifying Hermeias (ranking him in the ode with Herakles, 
aij^d others) by alleging tliat he had notoriously erected a 
tomb, and performed funeral ceremonies to him as a mortal. 
Mr. Grote remarks, that this did not meet tlie case: the 
Athenians would not have felt the logical inconsistency 
of the two proceedings ; what they felt was the worthlessness 
of Hermeias, to whom he rendered these great honours, 
whether as divinity or as human being. The solemn 
measure and character of a paean was disgraced by being 
applied to so vile a person. 

Mr. Grote has farther supplied illustrative comments on 
the position of Aristotle with reference to the rival schools, 
namely, of Isocrates and of Plato ; and gives what evidence 
remains of his feelings towards his rivals, on which bitter 
reflections were common. 

The second chapter is entitled the ^Aristotelian Canon.' 
The problem of what are Aristotle's genuine writings has far 
greater complication than attends the Platonic canon ; and 
Mr. Grote exhausts his learning and acumen in the attempt 
to unravel it. We shall not follow him in this research, but 
shall advert only to his concluding dissertation on the exact 
meanino; of the renowned distinction between Esoteric and 
Exoteric doctrine. The basis of explanation of these words, 
as occurring in Aristotle's own writings, is exceedingly narrow. 
The word ^ Exoteric ' occurs in eight passages of the extant 
works (taking in the Eudemian Ethics, which is disputed by 
some critics) ; seven of these are indecisive ; but reasoning 
from the eighth, Mr. Grote thinks that the word means 
dialectical delate as contrasted with demonstration] a funda- 



WOEK ON AEISTOTLE. [125] 

mental distinction with Aristotle. This is very different from 
the common acceptation of the two contrasting terms — exo- 
teric and esoteric. According to Mr. Grote, the ' esoteric ' is 
the essence of science or philosophy itself, in its deductive, 
demonstrative, or syllogistic march ; the ^ exoteric ' is some- 
thinof Ivino; outside of this, extrinsic, but vet a valuable 
province in itself, the province of the probable, the disput- 
able, where there is no proper demonstration, but a series 
of arguments pro and eon. The Organon or Methodised 
Eatiocination of Aristotle, fell under corresponding heads, 
the one (Demonstrative) represented by the Analytica, the 
other (Dialectic) by the Topica. 

Of the prodigious total of works composed by Aristotle, 
the larger number have perished. There still remain about 
forty treatises, of authenticity not open io any reasonable 
suspicion, attesting the grandeur of his intelligence, in 
respect of speculative force, positive and negative, system- 
atizing patience, comprehensive curiosity as to matters of 
fact, and diversified applications of detail. In the order of 
study most generally agreed upon, the first place is given 
to the collection of treatises called the Organon, six in 
number : — The Categories ; De Interpretatione or De Enun- 
ciatione ; Analytica Priora; Analytica Posteriora ; Topica ; De 
Sophisticis Elenchis. The last, although a short treatise, is 
very important ; it forms naturally a part of the Topica ; so 
that, in fact, there are five distinct treatises : each having a 
well-marked subject. 

Mr. Grote's greatest originality as an expositor appears in 
his account of the first treatise — Categoric, the Cate- 
gories. It corresponds to the logical department of Terms, 
although the best known logicians have discarded Aristotle's 
treatment, and have usually given in some detached chapter 
a List of the Categories without connecting explanation, 
often accompanied with an insinuation that the subject does 
not belong to Logic. Nevertheless, the nature of Terms, 
and their various distinctions, have their beginning in the 
book of the Categories. Aristotle was the first to distinguish 



[126] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

terms as Equivocal and TJnivocdly and to regard predication 
or the proposition as made up of terms. 

The Ten Categories or Predicaments are a comprehensive 
classification of all things that enter into a proposition, 
either as Subject or as Predicate. They are : — ^' 1. Essence 
01 Substance ; such as, man, horse. 2. How mucli ov Quan- 
tity ; such as, two cubits long, three cubits long. 3. ]Miat 
manner of ov Quality ; such as, Avhite, erudite. 4. Ad aliquid 
— To something or Relation ; such as, double, half, greater. I| 

5. J\niere ; such as, in the market-place, in the Lykeium. 

6. When ; such as, yesterday, last year. 7. In what posture ; 
such as, he stands up, he is sitting down. 8. To have ; such 
as, to be shod, to be armed. 9. Activity ; such as, he is 
cutting, he is burning. 10. Passivity ; such as, he is being 
cut, he is being bAi'ned." 

'' In this enumeration, Aristotle takes his departure, not 
from any results of prior research, but from common speech; 
and from the dialectic, frequent in his time, which debated 
about matters of common life and talk, about received and 
current opinions. We may presume him to have studied and 
compared a variety of current propositions, so as to discover 
the different relations in which subjects and predicates did 
stand or could stand to each other ; also the various ques- 
tions which might be put respecting any given subject, with 
the answers suitable to be returned. " 

The chief stress of Aristotle's exposition rests upon the first 
four categories — Substance, Quantity, Quality, Relation; as 
to the six last — Wliere, Wlien, Posture. Having, Activity ^ 
Passivity, he says little upon any of them ; upon some 
nothino; at all. 

The cardinal explanation of the whole scheme turns upon 
the First Category — Substance or Essence. From the 
prevailing signification of this term, as the most extreme and 
attenuated of all abstractions, we are unprepared for the 
meaning given to it by Aristotle, namely, the Concrete 
Individual. The First Ens or First Essence — that which is 
Ens in the fullest sense — is the individual concrete person or 



WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [127] 

thing in nature ; Sokrates, Bukephalus, this man, that horse, 
that oak-tree, &c. This First E^is is indispensable as Sub- 
ject or Substratum for all the other Categories, and even for 
predication generally. It is a subject only ; it never appears 
as a predicate of anything else. 

Haying defined in this fashion substance or First Essence, 
by which he placed himself in diametrical opposition to 
Plato's Ideas, Aristotle states what he means by a Second 
Essence, namely the species that a thing belongs to ; Sokrates 
First Essence; man or animal — Species or Second Essence. 
Here in reality, he is goiug on another tack, mixing up with 
the categories a different set of distinctions; these terms, 
however, — First and Second Essences, are of vital moment in 
the Aristotelian philosophy. The proper antithesis to 
Substance is seen in the remaining nine Categories — 
Quantity, Quality, &c, which are predicates for clothing the 
First Essence, or Individual. An individual man, horse, 
building, possesses Quantity in various ways ; also Quality as 
white, living, costly. Aristotle discusses and classifies the 
modes of Quantity, as shown in the mathematical sciences, 
and in the adjectives of degree little, much, &c. 

He then proceeds to Relation, and gets out of his depth, not 
seeing that relation instead of being a property co-ordinate 
with Quantity, Quality, and the rest, is at the foundation of 
tlie whole, as Mr. Grote amply shows. The ancient philoso- 
phers had far-seeing glimpses into the principle of Eelativity, 
but usually broke down at some point or other, and landed 
themselves in confusion and even contradiction ; and the 
present attempt of Aristotle is a signal example. 

In seekino: a clue to what was in the mind of Aristotle 
when he drew up this very imperfect classification of things 
entering into either the Subject or the Predicate of propo- 
sitions, Mr. Grrote points out the last as the most suggestive. 
Every one is astonished, after surveying the sweeping 
generalities — Quantity, Quality, and Relation, to come down 
to Posture (sitting, lying), Having (possessing shoes or arms) ; 
for while the higher, and grander attributes, include every- 



[128] CHAKACTER AND WRITINGS. 

thing in their sweep, the last can apply only to some human 
being or animal. We infer from this that Aristotle had in 
his mind chiefly some individual man, and put all the dif- 
ferent questions that could be answered respecting that 
individual. 

The caprice in choosing the number Ten, was the remains 
in Aristotle's mind of the fascination for particular numbers, 
which so largely affected the Pythagoreans, and after them, 
Plato. The number might easily have been extended, or 
it might have been contracted, as it was by the Stoics, wha 
recognised only Four : while Plotinus and Galen each made 
out Five. 

^^ He was, as far as we can see, original in taking as the 
point of departure for his theory, the individual man, horse, 
or other perceivable object ; in laying down this Concrete 
Particular with all its outfit of details, as the type of Ens 
proper, complete and primary ; and in arranging into classes 
the various secondary modes of Ens according to their 
different relations to the primary type and the mode in 
w^hich they contributed to make up its completeness. He 
thus stood opposed to the Pythagoreans and Platonists, who 
took their departure from the Universal, as the type of full 
and true Entity ; while he also dissented from Demokritus> 
who recognised no true Eiis except the underlying, imper- 
ceptible, eternal atoms and vacuum. Moreover, Aristotle 
seems to have been the first to draw up a logical analysis of 
Entity in its widest sense, as distinguished from that meta- 
physical analysis which we read in his other works ; the two 
not being contradictory, but distinct and leading to different 
purposes. Both in the one and in the other, his principal 
controversy seems to have been with the Platonists, who dis- 
regarded both individual objects and accidental attributes ; 
dwelling upon Universals, Genera, and Species, as the only 
real Entia capable of being known." 

The second treatise of the Organon is called De Inter- 
pret a tione, the doctrine of the Proposition. This, with the 



%VOEK ON ARISTOTLE. [129] 

* Analytica Priora/ is the source of the theory of Propo- 
sitions in modern Logic. Denial or negative affirmation 
was in a very confused state in the philosophies prior to 
Aristotle ; and although his terminology is not in all respects 
fully developed, he made the great step of distinguishing the 
Quantity of Propositions — as Universal or Particular, from 
which followed the two modes of denial, Contrary and Con- 
tradictory. The Maxim or Law of Contradiction was a part 
of this theory, which Mr. Grote attributes exclusively to 
Aristotle, in opposition to Sir W. Hamilton's attempt to 
trace it up to Plato. 

A considerable portion of the treatise is devoted to the 
so-called Modal Propositions — the Possible and the Neces- 
sary — and rings all the changes growing out of their oppo- 
sites. Much dissension has taken place among logicians as 
to these modals. Mr. Grote shows that they have a place 
in Logic, but have not been satisfactorily dealt with by 
Aristotle, being a very serious clog in his handling, both of 
the proposition and the syllogism. 

Next follows the Analytica Prioka containing the 
theory of the syllogism. This great artificial construction 
is claimed by Aristotle, as exclusively his own, and there 
is no reason to contest his claim. He had no model to 
proceed upon except geometry, which had already in his 
time been cast into its present form, although not with 
Euclid's system. By examining a vast number of examples 
of reasoning or arguments, he had detected the uniform 
presence of two primary propositions, related to each other, 
and to the proposition to be proved, in certain definite ways. 
He provided technical language for expressing the consti- 
tuent propositions and terms, and found out nearly all the 
modes of relationship of the premises that would give true 
conclusions. He prepared the way for the mutual resolution 
of argumentative forms (called reduction) by laying down 
the laws of the Conversion of Propositions, although his 
attempts to prove these laws are a manifest failure. He 

h 



[130] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

characterised Figure by the position of the Middle Term, 
and worked out by trial all the valid moods in the Three 
Figures (the Fourth was a later addition). He was the 
first to employ alphabetical letters to abbreviate the state- 
ment of prepositional forms, having seen something of the 
same sort in geometry. He set great store upon the supe- 
riority of the First Figure, as the only one wherein we can 
prove the Universal Affirmative, — the great aim of scientific 
research. His exposition is not always- satisfactory, and 
is greatly encumbered by the introduction of Modal Pro- 
positions. He exemplifies the dialectical applications of the 
syllogism, still farther carried out in the treatise called 
Topica : and handles various forms of fallacy. 

Mr. Grote is always careful to remark Aristotle's admission 
that the jprincij^ia or premises of demonstration are furnished 
by experience and induction, each separate science con- 
tributing its own quota ; astronomical observation and expe- 
rience furnishing the basis of astronomical laws, and so on. 
This was one of his marked points of opposition to Plato. 
Nevertheless, he was very far from steady in his hold of 
induction. In the second book of ' Analytica Priora,' occurs 
his attempt to give induction the form of syllogism, which 
Mr. Grote fully shows to be utterly fallacious, although 
renewed by most formal logicians down to Whately. It was 
the distinguishing glory of John Stuart Mill to show the 
relation of Induction to Deduction, and Mr. Grote zealously 
adopted his explanation. Aristotle, as Mr. Grote points out, 
was not wedded exclusively to the deductive formalities. In 
his numerous treatises on other subjects, scarcely any allusion 
is made to the syllogism, nor to its rules as laid down in the 
* Analytica.' He held that the deductive process was only 
the last half of the process of inference, and presupposed a 
foregone induction. It was the deductive portion that he 
himself analysed, and if any one had performed a similar 
analysis of the other half, we may fairly believe that he 
would have welcomed it, as filling up a gap in the complete 
theory of reasoning. 



WOKK ON ARISTOTLE. [131] 

Various leading points of Aristotelian doctrine, occurring 
in the ^ Analytica Priora,' are elucidated in Mr. Grote's com- 
mentary. The antithesis of notior nobis, and notior naturd, is 
strongly insisted on in many of Aristotle's writings. Here it 
is expounded by the contrast between example or induction, 
and deduction. The distinction is intelligible enough, but 
the phraseology is somewhat strained and figurative, and is 
not employed in modern philosophy. 

The ^ Analytica Priora ' is intended to give the complete 
theory of the syllogism, or deductive reasoning. There are 
two great applications of the syllogism — demonstration and 
dialectic — processes fundamentally contrasted by Aristotle. 
To the first, demonstration, he devotes a treatise called 
* Analytica Posteriora;' to the second a still larger treatise, 
the ' Topica.' 

The Posterior Analytics — ostensibly devoted to demon- 
strative or scientific truth, and the processes implicated in 
demonstration — is somewhat miscellaneous in its character ; 
it contains a good deal of foreign matter, although all of 
interest in the Aristotelian philosophy. 

Mr. Grote takes pains, at the outset of his commentary on 
this treatise, to illustrate the distinction between science and 
dialectic. Science or demonstration meant with Aristotle, as 
with us, the region of knowledge laid out by special inquirers 
after careful examination ; it is confined to a small number 
of subjects ; it has recognised jprincipia, or first principles to 
start from ; these principles are universally and essentially 
true, and admitted by all ; they are obtained from the induc- 
tion of particulars. On the other hand, dialectic is common 
sense or opinion, the knowledge of general society ; it extends 
to all manner of subjects; its principles are the received 
opinions of the community, or the dicta of individuals of 
more or less weight ; these are at best but probable. Both 
departments agree in coming under the scope of the 
syllogism. 

It was a feature of Aristotle's business-like sagacity or 

h2 



[132] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

practical good sense, always to be aware of the comparatiye 
degree of certainty attainable in different subjects. There 
were two extremes — the exact sciences of demonstration, and 
the utterly loose and undigested opinions of the multitude 
upon complicated and difficult topics; between these two 
extremes lay a middle region, represented by his various 
miscellaneous treatises on topics theoretical and practical. 

For demonstration he takes the best illustrative type, 
Geometry. The learner of a demonstrative science must 
possess certain jprsecognitay in the shape of definitions and 
axioms, on which the teacher is to proceed. But then arises 
the Platonic paradox : learning is an impossible act ; for 
either you know a thing already, or you don't know it ; if 
you don't know it, how can you go in search of a thing that 
you are wholly ignorant of? Aristotle shows the way out of 
this puzzle by distinguishing between imperfect and perfect 
knowledge. He then deals with a different class of objectors, 
persons that failed to see the cardinal property of demon- 
stration ; one set maintaining the possibility of demonstrating 
backward ad infinitum; the other contending for the legi- 
timacy of reasoning in a circle. 

Again, in demonstration, the principles must be necessary 
or essential, and not concomitant or accidental (this is not 
the case.) He next contends, very properly, that the 
principia should be of the very highest universality, not 
inferior or derivative principles, which of course are them- 
selves demonstrable. Further, in demonstration, the con- 
clusion must follow necessarily from the premises. Again, 
the premises must be appropriate to the matter in hand. 
Moreover, the process of demonstration, although requiring 
universal propositions, neither requires nor countenances the 
Platonic theory of ideas — universal substances beyond and 
apart from particulars. Once more, the grand fundamental 
maxim of contradiction, appealed to in demonstrating by 
reducUo ad alsurdum, is not enunciated in any special science, 
but is a point of contact or communion of all the sciences ; 
it belongs to the First Philosophy, and is not to be made the 



WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [133] 

subject of scrutiny by the geometer or other specialist as 
such. In dialectical disputation, the questions and answers 
should always be kept within the limits of the science ; hence 
it is futile to discuss geometry with persons that are not 
geometers. 

Mr. Grote follows this treatise through its numerous wind- 
ings and repetitions, and succeeds in making plain the 
author's drift, even when he is crude and inconsistent. 
There is some confusion of thought in applying the syllo- 
gistic designation, the middle term, to intermediate links in 
physical cause and effect, and the celebrated four causes are 
brought in to explain the meanings of knowdedge. Generally 
speaking Aristotle has a good grasp of the main conditions 
of demonstration : he is less steady, but still very knowing, 
in the niceties of definition. From our present logical point 
of view we can see distinctly what he is aiming at, and where 
he misses : and the interest of the work consists in tracing 
the struggles of an original mind. 

The concluding chapter of the treatise discusses the mental 
origin of the jprincipia of demonstration themselves. Mr. 
Grote gives a careful rendering of Aristotle's view of tliis 
disputed problem, showing that he cannot be ranked with 
intuitionists, inasmuch as he held these first principles to be 
acquired ; still he regarded the inductive process as cul- 
minating in the infallible Nous, or theorising intelligence. 

The TopiCA is a very remarkable treatise. It is the 
working out of an artificial scheme for conducting dialectical 
debates, in which Aristotle exhausts all the resources of his 
logical subtleties. In this, as in the syllogism itself, he 
claims entire originality. He found teachers of contentious 
dialogue, as well as of rhetoric, but they knew nothing of 
the theory of their art; he compares them to a teacher 
of shoe-making that should merely show his pupils ready- 
made shoes. 

Long and elaborate as this treatise is, Mr. Grote follows 
it through all the details, and leaves a very fresh and vivid 



[134] CHAEACTEB AND WHITINGS. 

impression of Aristotle's genius for flue distinctions and 
technical abstractions. 

The first book is preparatory. It repeats the contrast 
between demonstration and dialectic, showing in particular 
the foundation of dialectic in common opinions instead of 
scientific principles. But not content with drawing the real 
distinction between the demonstrative and the dialectical 
syllogism, Aristotle makes a farther distinction between 
dialectic and eristic, on which Mr. Grote remarks that he is 
here carried away by his fixed determination to damage the 
Sophists — a purpose manifested at intervals throughout the 
treatise, and involving him in frequent inconsistencies. 

The Aristotelian name for the first principles in dialectic 
debate is endoxa, meaning opinions more or less authoritative, 
being fortified by a certain amount of prevailing belief 
or acceptance, and therefore possessing a certain presump- 
tion in their favour. These endoxa are opposed to adoxa, 
propositions wanting in authority, of which the extreme 
variety is named paradoxa, which have the predominant 
authority of opinion against them. We have naturalised 
this last class in our word paradox ; we ought also to have 
endox and adox, the endox especially is necessary to the un- 
derstanding of the present treatise. '' The essential feature 
of the endoxon is, that it has acquired a certain amount of 
recognition among the mass of opinions and beliefs floating 
and carrying authority at the actual time and place. When 
Josephus distinguished himself as a disputant in the schools 
of Jerusalem on points of law and custom, his arguments 
must have been chiefly borrowed from the endoxa or preva- 
lent opinions of the time and place ; but these must have 
differed widely from the endoxa found and argued upon by 
the contemporaries of Aristotle at Athens. 

'^It is within the wide field of floating opinions that 
dialectical debate and rhetorical pleading are carried on. 
Dialectic supposes a questioner or assailant, and a respon- 
dent or defendant. The respondent selects and proclaims a 
problem or thesis, which he undertakes to maintain; the 



WOKK ON AKISTOTLE. [135] 

assailant puts to him successive questions, with the view of 
obtaining concessions which may serve as premisses for a 
counter-syllogism, of which the conclusion is contradictory 
or contrary to the thesis itself, or to some other antecedent 
premiss which the respondent has already conceded. It is 
the business of the respondent to avoid making any answers 
which may serve as premisses for such a counter-syllogism. 
If he succeeds in this, so as not to become implicated in any 
contradiction with himself, he has baffled his assailant, and 
gained the victory. There are, however, certain rules and 
conditions, binding on both parties, under which the debate 
must be carried on. It is the purpose of the Topica to in- 
dicate these rules ; and, in accordance therewith, to advise 
both parties as to the effective conduct of their respective 
cases — as to the best thrusts and the best mode of parrying. 
The assailant is supplied with a classified catalogue of ma- 
terials for questions, and with indications of the weak points 
which he is to look out for in any new subject which may 
turn up for debate. He is further instructed how to shape, 
marshal, and disguise his questions, in such a way that the 
respondent may least be able to foresee their ultimate 
bearing. The respondent, on his side, is told what he ought 
to look forward to and guard against. Such is the scope of 
the present treatise; the entire process being considered in 
the large and comprehensive spirit customary with Aristotle, 
and distributed according to the Aristotelian terminology 
and classification." 

The debate is valuable, first, as a stimulating mental ex- 
ercise ; next, as facilitating our intercourse with the multi- 
tude, whose opinions we should know and be able to modify ; 
lastly, in the scrutiny of the principles of science proper. 
The first head is substantially the Platonic view of the Dia- 
logues of Search. The second is characteristic of Aristotle, 
who was careful to collect the current opinions of the multi- 
tude on all matters. 

He is also careful to lay out the class of problems suitable 
for debate ; they must neither be what all persons believe. 



[136] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

nor what no one believes ; there must be doubts and diflS- 
culties, and yet the premisses needed for their solution must 
not be far-fetched or recondite. 

The plan of the treatise follows that fourfold division of 
propositions, known as the predicables, which, in later times, 
were enumerated as five. Looking to the nature of a pro- 
position, as made up of two things — subject and predicate, 
the ordinary case should be that the subject means one 
thing, the predicate another ; '* generalship needs long ex- 
perience ; " " generalship " means one property, " needs long 
experience " means another ; and the coupling of the two is 
a piece of information or communicated knowledge. Now 
the proposition appears in its full character, when the two 
meanings are wholly unconnected by nature, so that we should 
never by considering one arrive at the other ; of such kind 
are propositions as to the original locality of minerals, plants, 
or animals ; for by looking at a mineral specimen we have no 
means of telling where it came from. To this extreme dis- 
connection of subject and predicate Aristotle gave the name 
concomitant predication ; it represents the proposition in its 
highest reality as imparting knowledge. 

Another case is where subject and predicate are distinct in 
meaning, but yet so far involved in one another, that by a 
full study of the subject, one might discover or discern the 
predicate. Such are the propositions as to geometrical 
figures. In a triangle the sum of two sides is greater than 
the third. Now a triangle means a three-sided figure, and 
that is all ; the fact that the combined length of two sides 
exceeds the third side is a distinct fact, but yet it is impli- 
cated in, or grows out of, the essential nature of the triangle, 
the three-sided property. For this new mode of predication 
Aristotle invented a term translated jprojprium or property ; 
and the distinction reflects honour on his subtlety. Con- 
comitant and property are thus the two modes of real predi- 
cation. But this is not all. People are very often ignorant 
of the meaning of the subject itself, or if not wholly ignorant? 
they may be imperfectly cognizant of its exact and fuU 



WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [137] 

meaning. Hence many propositions are framed, not to unite 
a subject and a predicate as distinct facts, but to declare the 
meaning of a subject : " a triangle is a three-sided figure," 
^' generalship is the art of commanding of an army " — are 
propositions of this nature. Here is an entirely new mode 
of predication, it has the form and not the reality of a pro- 
position. Some other name must be found for this third 
situation ; we call it now definition, verbal predication, essen- 
tial predication. 

This threefold distinction in the forms of predication is 
most important ; it was made by Aristotle, and constitutes 
the predicables. But for the third mode he used two desig- 
nations — definition and genus ; the later logicians perplexed 
the matter still more by using three heads, genus^ species, 
difference ; their reason, probably, being that definition was 
explained by Aristotle as _p6r genus et dijfferentiam — stating 
first the genus of a thing and next its specific difference. 

It is obvious to us now that the verification of these three 
modes of predication proceeds by quite different routes. In 
the totally disconnected propositions — those of circumstance 
or accident, the proof (in the last resort) must be observa- 
tion of fact ; in the propria, observation may be brought in, 
but is not essential ; a skilful inference from the meaning of 
the subject evolves the predicate. In the third kind, we 
have not to deal with truth or falsehood, but with conformity 
between particulars and a general statement. 

Aristotle was very far from discerning fully the exact 
nature or conditions of each of these three modes of predi- 
cation ; yet he had marvellously shrewd glimpses of their 
respective characteristics. 

Farther : each of the predicables must fall under one or 
other of his Ten Categories, which gives enlarged scope for 
multiplying distinctions. Occasionally Aristotle makes this 
reference to some of the categories, but to no good purpose ; 
the categories themselves are too roughly laid out for any 
pregnant application. 

Aristotle's acuteness discovered another circumstance in 



[138] CHAEACTER AND WRITINQS. 

connection with the debating of true and false, namely, that 
the question often turned upon an identity ; whereupon, as 
usual, he takes to dividing the modes or kinds of identity — 
identity (1) numero, (2) specie, (3) genere. This also survived 
in the schools as he gave it. 

Finally : " What helps are available to give to the dialec- 
tician a ready and abundant command of syllogisms ? Four 
distinct helps may be named : (1) he must make a large col- 
lection of propositions ; (2) he must study and discrimiuate 
the different senses in which the terms of these propositions 
are used ; (3) he must detect and note differences ; (4) he 
must investigate resemblances." 

This is bravely sketched ; but the filling up disappoints 
us. The first and second helps are fairly discussed ; the two 
last — to our present apprehension, the most vital and funda- 
mental facts of knowledge — are merely made the groimd of 
some remarks upon classification and induction. Aristotle 
saw that induction, syllogism, and definition, were all pro- 
cesses of resemblance ; and he brought under the same head, 
as an endoxon, that what happens in any one of a string of 
similar cases, will happen in the rest. 

The meaning of toj^os (which gives the title Tojoica), in 
Latin locus, is a place where may be found arguments or 
modes of arguing, suited to each purpose or occasion — sedes 
argumentoTum, A short exemplification of xlristotle's copious 
detail of Loci, will show his meaning. Beginning with those 
theses where the predicate of the proposition to be impugned 
is Concomitant or Accident — the real proposition in the 
strictest sense — he enumerates no less than thirty-seven 
distinct loci, or argumentative points of view regarding it. 
Most of them suggest modes of assailing the thesis ; but there 
are also occasional intimations to the respondent in the 
debate, how he may best guard himself. Of the thirty-seven 
Mr. Grote recounts twenty-two, remarking, that " there are 
some items repetitions of each other, or at least not easily 
distinguishable " — a serious derogation from Aristotle's logical 
acuteness. 



WOEK ON ARISTOTLE. [139] 

The first locus is highly to the purpose. The supposition 
and pretension is that the proposition is one of Concomi- 
tance. Let the assailant, therefore, look and see whether 
in point of fact it does not fall under some of the other 
predicables ; whether the predicate may not be of the 
genus, essence, or definition of the subject itself; the very 
common mistake of confounding a real with a verbal pro- 
position. If the proposition, White is a colour, be given 
as a Concomitant, it can be impugned and shown to be an 
affirmation of the genus of the subject, for " white " is a 
species under the genus "colour." By showing this, an 
opponent may gain a dialectical victory. 

The second locus goes to the truth or falsehood of a uni- 
versal proposition, affirmative or negative, and declares the 
real basis or proof of a universal, namely, the truth of the 
particulars. This is of course the foundation of all inductive 
proof. Out of this arises at once the policy of an assailant 
or objector — review the particulars, and if any of them is 
untrue, the proposition is broken down. Or, instead of 
reviewing the ultimate particulars which might be endless 
or impossible — take them in genera and species, or sub- 
propositions; inasmuch as the higher generalities are fre- 
quently an aggregate of inferior, having a smaller compass ; 
" all bodies gravitate " (highest universal) : solids gravitate, 
liquids gravitate, airs gravitate (sub-propositions). Aristotle's 
own example is a favourite doctrine of his, belonging to the 
Eelativity of Knowledge. — The cognition of opposites is one ; 
and he divides Opposites into the several species, Belata, 
and Correlata, Contraries, Contradictories, and opposites re- 
specting Habitus and Privatio. 

Instead of dealing with this locus as merely one out of thirty- 
seven, Aristotle should have made it the head and front of 
the whole dialectic of Concomitant Affirmation. The proof or 
disproof of a universal, by examination of particulars, is the 
alpha and omega of science, proof, or certainty in knowledge. 

His third locus is also fundamental, but it should have 
been first — to define the terms used both in the subject and 



[140] 



CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 



in the predicate. Not a step should be taken with any 
proposition till its terms are defined. Moreover, definition 
is a branch of logic by itself, and in the sequel, Aristotle 
has a vast number of loci bearing upon definition, this being 
one of his predicables or divisions, so that he need not have 
introduced the process, except by reference, among the loci 
of concomitance. 

A fourth locus^ both for assailant and for respondent, is to 
discriminate the cases where the authority of the multitude 
is conclusive from those where it is not ; a rather trying 
operation, although exceedingly to the purpose. This should 
have been done once or for all by philosophers like Aristotle 
himself ; there should have been provided a set of canons of 
authority, to be applied by the disputants whom the present 
treatise addresses. 

Aristotle gives more than one suggestion as to cases where 
the terms of a universal thesis have a double or triple sense. 
This should come under definition ; for the carrying out of 
the process of defining discloses double meanings and equivo- 
cation. When there is an equivocation, a wary disputant 
can make use of it against an unwary opponent. Consent is 
obtained to the proposition under one meaning of a term, and 
then extorted for the other meaning. 

The refutation of a universal, by quoting contradictory 
particulars, unavoidably comes up again and again, and 
ought to have been consecutive and systematic. Thus, if a 
predicate is a generic quality, as in "the soul is moved J^ some 
of the specific modes must be applicable — some known 
variety of motion, as increase, destruction, generation, &c. 
If none of the recognised modes of motion apply to the soul, 
then the thesis is refuted. 

A very pertinent locus is, look to the antecedents and 
consequents of the thesis — what things it assumes, and what 
will follow from it; if any of these can be disproved, the 
thesis fails. This is repeated, without material difference, 
in a subsequent locus, 

A locus belonging to the tactics or management of a 



WOEK ON ABISTOTLE. [141] 

debate (called by Aristotle a sophistical procedure) is to 
transfer the debate to some point where we happen to be 
more at home. 

It may be advantageous in attacking the thesis, to construe 
the terms in their strict etymological sense, rather than 
according to usage. This is merely a repetition of the loci 
bearing upon equivocation or double meanings of words. 

The predicate may belong to its subject either necessarily 
or usually, or by pure hazard. Here Aristotle forgets the 
nature of concomitance, which is to exclude necessary con- 
nexions ; or else he repeats his first locus. 

The thesis may have predicate and subject exactly syno- 
nymous, so that the same thing will be affirmed as an 
accident of itself. G-rows also out of attention to the mean- 
ing of the terms, or definition. 

A number of loci bear upon the nature of opposita, ac- 
cording to Aristotle's classification of them, which he handled 
dexterously, and for the most part soundly. 

Very properly, he has a locus for reasoning by analogy, 
although imperfectly appreciating the nature and limitations 
of the process. 

He had also a considerable mastery of the argument from 
concomitant variations, or the proof from more or less ; out 
of which he extracts a highly serviceable locus. 

xin argument described by Aristotle as ex adjuncto, is 
something like what we now call the method of difference. 
" If the subject, prior to adjunction of the attribute, be not 
white or good, and if the adjunction of the attribute makes 
it white or good, then you may argue that the adjunct itself 
must be white or good." 

The foregoing selection contains the leading points of the 
second book of the ^ Topica,' perhaps the most remarkable 
book of the ten, when we consider that it sets forth, in a 
crude condition, the principal canons of inductive logic. 
These statements cannot be called germs, for they never 
germinated; inductive logic was developed from other 
sources ; they are rather crumbs and crudities, examples 



[142] CHAEACTER AND WHITINGS. 

of the numerous great truths that Aristotle touched in his 
speculative course. 

The third book carries out the same predicable, viz., 
accident or concomitant, to the practical department of good 
or evil, expetenda and fugienda ; the question being, of two 
or more distinct subjects which is the better or more desir- 
able. This is really an abuse of the forms of logic, which 
Aristotle is guilty of in the Ethics also, to suppose that they 
could be applied with any advantage to determining good 
and evil. There are doubtless certain formal maxims and 
criteria that may be laid down in this department, but the 
logical technicalities, accident, proprium, genus, species, are 
much better away from all that class of discussions. 

That such topics should be frequent in the dialectical 
debating at Athens was inevitable. They came closest home 
to every bosom. And as Aristotle himself was intensely 
practical, and the author of the best treatises in antiquity on 
ethics and on politics, he could bring his sagacity to bear 
upon the modes of comparing different ends of pursuit. 
Accordingly he here casts into the form of loci for debate 
a number of his views and theories. For example : — " Of 
two good subjects compared, that is better and more desirable 
which is the more lasting, or which is preferred by the wise 
and good man, or by the professional artist in his own craft, 
or by right law, or by the multitude, all or most of them. 
That is absolutely or simply better and more desirable, which 
is declared to be such by the better cognition ; that is better 
to any individual which is better by his own cognition." A 
thing is more desirable when good on its own account than 
when good by accident. What is good to all and at all times 
is better than what is good only for a special occasion or 
individual ; to be in good health is better than to be cut for 
the stone. What is good by nature, as justice, is better than 
what is good by artifice or acquisition, as the just individual, 
whose character must have been acquired. G-ood in the 
primary and more exalted elements of any subject, is more 
desirable than good belonging to the derivative, secondary. 



WOEK ON AEISTOTLE. [143] 

■* 
and less exalted ;. health, which resides in the fundamental 

constituents of the body (wet, dry, hot, cold) is better than 

strength or beauty, residing in the hues and muscles. An 

end is superior to the means. These are a few out of a 

prolix enumeration of loci for good and evil ; they are given 

in the common forms of ethical disquisition, but in the latter 

portion of the book the language of formal logic is made to 

apply to this class of questions. 

For example. He supposes the thesis to be propounded 
to be a particular proposition. In that case we can apply 
the logical rule that the universal proves the particular, 
affirmative or negative. So the loci from opposites can be 
applied to particulars of the present class. It is a locus of 
contraries, if all pleasure is good, then all pain is evil ; hence 
if some pleasure is good, some pain is evil. Again, there is 
an argument, a fortiori, thus: if some capacity is a less 
good than science, while yet some capacity is good, then 
some science is good. A debater may propound a thesis 
with the assumption that, if true or false in any one case, it 
shall be accepted as true or false universally (if the human soul 
is immortal, all other souls are immortal). This is evidently 
to extend the particular into an universal, and the respondent 
must try to prove the negative in some particular case. 

These and other cases where the forms of logic are applied, 
might have been introduced into the previous book. The 
criteria special to a practical question are not brought for- 
ward at all : the propositions are treated purely in the 
logical aspect. 

The fourth book of the Topica is occupied with the pre- 
dicable " genus." It is really an excursus upon the relations 
of genus and species, of which Aristotle had an adequate 
mastery. Simple as the relationship is, it might be very 
readily blundered, especially in abstruse instances, so that 
many debates would arise upon the referring of a species to 
its proper genus. Suppose A is declared to be genus of B ; 
if now there be any members of B that cannot come under 
genus A, then B is not species of A, that is, A is not genus 



[144] 



CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 



of B. Again, the species has all the attributes of the 
genus and something more ; if, then, an alleged species has 
not all the generic qualities, it is not a species of that genus. 
Farther, the same species cannot be in two distinct genera, 
unless either one of the two be subordinate to the other, or 
both are comprehended under some common higher genus 
[not always then]. Thus the thesis may declare that justice 
is science ; now justice is in the distinct genus " virtue " ; 
but as both science and virtue can be referred to one and 
the same higher genus, the thesis '' justice is science " is not 
open to refutation. 

As usual, he makes this predicate run the gauntlet of his 
contraries, but does not clearly extricate the situations that 
he creates. He supposes cases where the species has some 
contrary, but the genus has not, and vice versa ; sickness in 
general (he says) has for its contrary health in general, but 
particular species of sickness, as fever, gout, &c., have no 
contrary. In all this- part, he goes astray from defective views 
of contrariety and correlation. Altogether, his handling of 
genus is historically curious, but uninstructive to the 
modern reader. 

The fifth book, devoted to '^ proprium " as a predicable, is 
not satisfactory. It was a great stroke of subtlety to chalk 
out this predicable, but his hold of it is very loose. His re- 
finements and distinctions violate the true nature of the pro- 
prium, and he admits irrelevant matter without knowing it. 
He distinguishes a proprium semper from a proprium occa- 
sional ; it is the proprium semper of a god to be immortal ; 
it is the proprium sometimes of a man to be walking in the 
market place. Now while it is a nice point to determine 
whether immortality be the essence (definition) of a god or 
the proprium ; the modern logician would regard " walking 
in the market place " as accident or concomitant of a man, 
although the power or capability of walking would be 
regarded as proprium. Among things of doubtful relevance 
is the prescription that the proprium should be better known 
than the subject whereof it is predicated ; the suitable place 



WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [145] 

for this remark is under definition, where also it is given. 
There is farther a locus or caution against equivocal terms, 
which applies alike to every mode of predication. A pro- 
prium may be impeached, in debate, if it belongs to other 
subjects equally with the one that you attach it to. Perhaps 
the correctest observation respecting the proprium, as 
expressly defined by himself is this: — To set out the pro- 
prium well, the predicate ought to reciprocate and ought to 
be co-extensive with the subject, but it ought not to affirm 
the essence thereof, as '' man is an animal by nature gentle," 
where the predicate is co-extensive with the subject and yet 
does not declare the essence. 

The loci regarding proprium are numerous and prolix, and 
the repetitions and inconsistencies have incurred strictures 
from the commentators. He does not fail to ring the 
changes in his opposita ; he introduces his locus of more and 
less, and brings in the still more abstruse distinctions of his 
philosophy, as his favourite esse and fieri. 

The sixth book, the predicable of " definition," is a grand 
effort of logical manipulation. The author shows his usual 
minuteness of distinction, and copiousness of enumeration, 
with the same faults of confusion and irrelevance. Mr. Grote 
follows him through thirty-six different loci bearing on the 
matter or substance of definition, while there are others bearing 
on the expression. From a few examples, the reader can ima- 
gine the general drift of the book as rendered by Mr. Grote. 

In debates respecting definition, the attack or defence may 
turn upon one or other of five points ; — the alleged definition 
may not apply to the subject at all ; a genus may have been 
given (defining being per genus et differentiam) but not the 
ricrht genus ; the definition may include extraneous matter ; 
it may not declare the essence ; it may be good in substance 
but badly expressed or set out. The three first points 
belong to the previous books, the two remaining are the 
subject-matter of the present book. Of these two, one relates 
to the substance of definition, the other to the form or expres- 
sion. The last is taken first. ^ 

I 



[146] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

Bad expression may appear in two ways; there may be 
indistinctness ; and there may be redundancy. Indisiinctness 
may arise from equivocal terms ; from the misuse of meta- 
phors ; from employing terms that are far-fetched or little 
known (exemplified from Plato) ; from not making clear the 
contrary of the defining quality ; lastly, when the defining 
marks are insufficient to make known the thing meant (a 
criterion which Aristotle's own definitions often lamentably 
fail to satisfy). Bedundancy arises if the terms include other 
things besides the object defined (this error is not well 
described by "redundancy"); and if the same attribute be 
predicated twice over. 

Much more numerous, as well as more interesting, are the 
loci bearing on the substance of the definition. As in the 
other predicables, Aristotle puts his best foot foremost ; his 
first loci generally touch the fundamental conceptions of the 
subject. He starts with the sweeping requirement that the 
matter of the definition must be jprius and notius as com- 
pared with the definiend. One of his favourite distinctions 
is between things more known absolutely, or hy nature, and 
things more known to us ; by nature, the point is better 
known than the line, the line than the surface, the surface 
than the solid ; to us, the solid is best known ; we begin by 
conceiving the concrete solid ; and afterwards attain to the 
abstractions — surface, line, point. Too plainly, a definer 
may commit many sins against such an abstruse require- 
ment as this ; and hence the scope for an acute opponent 
fitted out from the Aristotelian armoury. A second locus 
impugns a definition that does not mention the genus ; a 
third is aimed at insufficiency of enumeration — there being 
three or four facts, and only one mentioned. The genus 
may be properly given, while there are faults in giving the 
differenti96. A definition may be exclusively negative, e. g,, a 
line is length without breadth. If the subject be relative, 
so must the differentiae. If the subject admits of More and 
Less, the definition must say so. When a relatum has to be 
defined, the true correlate must be given. As usual, all 



WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [147] 

modes of opposition furnish loci. The terms of a definition 
must not conjoin incompatible facts ; white has been defined, 
colour mingled with fire ; now colour is incorporeal, and 
cannot be mingled with fire which is corporeal. It is a 
mistake to define a subject by what is its highest excellence, 
a rhetor is one that omits nothing that can be plausibly said 
for a cause. You may not be able to attack a definition as a 
whole, but may successfully impugn some of its parts. More- 
over, you may take an adroit advantage of obscurity or 
intelligibility, by clearing it up so as to suit your own 
purpose. 

The seventh book continues the theses on definition, and 
enters upon the important collateral question of identity or 
sameness, already discriminated by Aristotle with sameness 
numero, and sameness sjpecie or genere. His close observation 
of the field of logical proof could not but disclose to him this 
property, just as he obtained an insight into the fact of 
relativity ; but he necessarily failed to put both facts into 
their position as the fundamentals of all cognition' 

The predicables are now finished, and the eighth book 
brings us back to the kind of general considerations advanced 
in the first. What is the order of procedure most suitable; 
first, for the questioner or assailant ; next, for the respondent 
or defender ? This order is different for the dialectician and 
for the man of science or philosopher. Aristotle classifies 
the different purposes of the debate, and claims originality in 
so doing, as well as in prescribing rules for each kind sepa- 
rately. He administers counsel to both partners in the 
conduct of the debate ; he indicates the mode of approaching 
it by preparatory questions ; these fall under the four heads — 
induction of particulars, maintaining the dignity of the dis- 
course, concealment, and the imparting of clearness. What 
he has to say about induction has already been noted; of 
dignity he says little ; the arts of concealment are detailed 
at great length, and include deception of manner as well as 
masking of operations; for clearness he prescribes the use 
of familiar examples taken from well-known poets like Homer. 

I 2 



[148] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

He instructs the respondent separately, and \Yitli considerable 
minuteness, although, in point of fact, the equipment for 
both partners must be very much the same. Towards the 
close of the book the dialectic shades off into the syllogistic 
logic, with which it is more or less implicated, the logical 
fallacies being also dialectical fallacies. In the present book 
he treats of petitio principii, and petitio contrariorum as 
occurring in dialectic. His concluding remarks consist of 
sound advice for exercise and practice in debate. 

The ninth and last book of the ^Topica' illustrates the 
remark just made as to the interlacing of logic and dialectic. 
So thoroughly has this been regarded as a logical treatise, 
that it has been adopted as a constituent part of the syllo- 
gistic or scholastic logic, and is the classical dissertation on 
fallacies slavishly retained in its minutest details to our own 
time. None of the other books of the ' Topica ' have found a 
place in our modern education ; the scheme of the predicables 
has been borrowed from it, but without Aristotle's copious 
elucidations and applications of them. 

Although Mr. Grote's analysis of the Sophistici elenchi will 
be found to contain fresh points of view, even to those that 
have studied the ' Fallacies' in ' Whately ' or any other work 
on the scholastic model, we shall do no more than call atten- 
tion to the chapter as concluding the author's vindication of 
the Sophists. 

It never occurred to any one before Mr. G-rote to remark 
on the extraordinary liberty taken by Aristotle with the so- 
called Sophists, when he used their name to designate the 
entire body of fallacies, or intellectual errors and weaknesses, 
which it was the object of a logical discipline to provide 
against and correct. "Fallacy," he said, ^^ thy name is 
Sophist." If there had been one special mode of error in- 
dulged in by the Sophists as a class, or in any way identified 
with their vocation, as when philosophers are styled theo- 
retical, or when politicians are said to take low views of 
human nature, there might have been a show of propriety in 
calling such error by their name. The disparaging word 



WOEK ON AKISTOTLE. [149 

"empiric" was first given by Hippocrates to the medical 
men of his own time, because they did not combine general 
views or theories with their practice. But to gather together 
every known species of error, to compile a treatise professedly 
exhaustive of the violations of sound reasoning, and to name 
the whole after the Sophists, as if they alone were guilty of 
such transgressions, and the rest of the world were infallible, 
was a proceeding equally strange and reprehensible. 

Aristotle adopted Plato's dislike of the Sophists. One 
might perhaps suppose that they had better reasons for 
thinking badly of the class than Mr. Grote has for dissenting 
from their concurrent view on such a matter. But the in- 
consistencies of both philosophers in maintaining their ill 
opinion of these men are enough to rouse suspicion. 

The Sophist, according to Aristotle, is one who makes 
money by a show of wisdom without the reality. The 
ostensible purpose of the present treatise, judging from its 
title, is to expose the bad arts and unsound arguments of 
this personage ; the actual contents of the treatise must be 
regarded as, for the time, an admirable classification of 
lomcal fallacies, executed at no small cost of time and 
labour. 

The Sophistical Elenchus or refutation, being a delusive 
semblance imposing on ordinary men, cannot be understood 
without the theory of Elenchus in general ; and this theory 
cannot be understood without the entire theory of the syllo- 
gism, of which the Elenchus is one variety. We must know 
the conditions of a good and valid syllogism before we can 
study tlie tests of a valid elenchus, which last must be known 
as a preparation for the pseudo-elenchus — the sophistical, 
invalid, or sham — refutation. 

There are four species of debate : (1) didactic, (2) dialectic, 
(3) peirastic, (4) eristic or sophistic. Between the two first, 
Mr. Grote remarks, there is a real antithesis, much dwelt 
upon by Aristotle ; but the peirastic and the eristic are mere 
aspects or varieties of dialectic. Dialectic is essentially 
gymnastic and peirastic ; gymnastic in reference to the two 



[150] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

debaters, and peirastic in reference to the arguments and 
doctrines made use of. Victory is the aim of the disputants 
in every case, but the arts employed may be honest and 
creditable, exemplifying the worthy debate. If, however, the 
assailing champion, bent upon victory at all cost, has re- 
course to dishonest interrogative tricks, or the defensive 
champion to perverse and obstructive negations, beyond the 
prescribed boundary, the debate is called by Aristotle eristic 
or contentious, from the undue predominance of the con- 
troversial spirit and purpose; also soj)histic^ from the fact 
that there existed (as he asserts) a class or profession of 
persons called Sophists, who regularly studied and practised 
these culpable mancBuvres, first with a view to rtsputation, 
and ultimately with a view to pecuniary profit, being pre- 
tenders to knowledge and wisdom without any justifying 
reality. 

It must be apparent that no man, not even Aristotle him- 
self, could consistently carry out this distinction. In the first 
place, it is altogether irrelevant to the scope of logic, which 
considers the value of arguments and not their purpose. In 
the next place, the line between the worthy and the unworthy 
disputant is impossible to draw. Mr. Grote's concluding 
observations on Aristotle's false position in this whole matter 
are irresistible and yet mild : — 

" I think it a mistake on the part of Aristotle to treat the 
fallacies incidental to the human intellect as if they were 
mere traps laid by Sophists and litigants ; and as if they 
would never show themselves, assuming dialectical debate 
to be conducted entirely with a view to its legitimate pur- 
poses of testing a thesis and following out argumentative 
consequences. It is true that, if there are infirmities inci- 
dental to the human intellect, a dishonest disputant will be 
likely to take advantage of them. So far it may be well to 
note his presence. But the dishonest disputant does not 
originate these infirmities ; he finds them already existing, 
and manifested undesignedly not merely in dialectical debate, 
but even in ordinary discourse. It is the business of those 



. WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [151] 

who theorize on the intellectual processes to specify and 
discriminate the fallacies as liabilities to intellectual error 
among mankind in general, honest or dishonest, with a view 
to precaution against their recurrence, or correction, if they 
do occur ; not to present them as inventions of a class of pro- 
fessional cheats, or as tares sown by the enemy in a field 
where the natural growth could be nothing but pure wheat. 

" In point of fact the actual classification of fallacies given 
by Aristotle is far sounder than his announcement would lead 
us to expect. Though he entitles them sophistical refuta- 
tions, describing them as intentionally cultivated and exclu- 
sively practised by professional Sophists for gain, or by 
unprincipled litigants for victory, yet he recognises them as 
often very difficult of detection, and as an essential portion 
of the theory of dialectic generally. The various general 
heads under which he distributes them are each characterised 
by intellectual or logical marks." 

The Topica completes the Organon or logical treatises of 
Aristotle. It was Mr. G-rote's intention to add here a chapter 
of his own on the modern logic as compared with the 
Aristotelian ; but the time already consumed upon a single 
department of his author warned him that he must proceed 
to other subjects. Next to the Organon came the Meta- 
THYSics. Of this department he takes a very enlarged 
view. 

To attain supreme and commanding generalities has been 
the aim of great thinkers in all ages. The first Greek 
philosophers were distinguished by their search after some 
all-embracing unity ; they thought to comprehend the 
Universe under a single idea. In Aristotle's time the 
plurality of the sciences was recognised ; the mathematical, 
the physical, and the biological departments were separately 
sketched, while the mental department was seen to be dis- 
tinct and unique. Nevertheless, it was felt by Aristotle that 
there must still be a central or master science, some common 
ground w^here all the departments come together, as one in 



[152] CHARACTEE AND WEITINGS. 

the many. By the search after such a science the philosopher 
was distinguished from the specialist. 

For the construction of this first philosophy, as he called 
it, Aristotle laid hold of the logical maxim called the prin- 
ciple of contradiction, and took much pains to expound it, 
and to vindicate it against some of his predecessors who 
seemed to deny it. He took a very just view of the nature 
of this maxim ; he regarded it as common to all reasoning, 
in every department, and as in itself indemonstrable. In 
addition to the purely logical law of contradiction, he em- 
braced, as suitable for his first philosophy, his four causes, 
the distinction between potential and actual, and the abstrac- 
tions form, matter, and privation, which play a great part in 
his philosophy. 

The treatises termed (by an accident) Metaphysica are 
occupied with the numerous discussions raised upon these 
points, and with criticisms upon the views of the preceding 
philosophers respecting them. Since, however, the Physica, 
although nominally the special department treating of the 
physical phenomena of the universe — motion, force, &c., is 
really expounded in the strain of the Metaphysica, Mr. Grote 
couples the two, and entitles his account of them ' Physica 
and Metaphysica'. Unfortunately he has executed only one 
chapter of this design, which, however, taken along with a 
free translation of the six leading books of the Metaphysica, 
will convey to the reader a very distinct view of the Aristo- 
telian handling of the highest abstractions of philosophy. 
These treatises are the classical authority for the opinions of 
the early Greek philosophers, and in that view alone must 
always be resorted to by the student of the history of phi- 
losophy, and Mr. Grote has done much to satisfy the desire 
of the English reader for this information. 

. Mr. Grote had formerly prepared an account of the very 
difficult treatise on the Soul (De Axima). Although not so 
full as he might have made it, had he come upon the subject 
in regular course, and with time and strength at his com- 



WORK ON ARISTOTLE. [153] 

Tna.nd, it embraces all the leading and difficult points of 
Aristotle's Psychology. While working on this treatise, he 
repeatedly stated that he had gained new insight into the 
fundamental positions of the Aristotelian philosophy. More 
particularly he was led to see that one pervading conception 
of Aristotle's mind was the notion of the Celestial Body — a 
mixture of science and emotion — which was to him both a 
philosophy and a theology. His vital distinction of Form 
and Matter was invoked to express the relation of Soul 
and Body. The Soul was ^' Form " ; and the grand region of 
Form, in the Universe, is the Celestial Body — the vast, deep, 
circular, perceivable mass circumscribing the Kosmos, and en- 
closing, in and around its centre, Earth with the three other 
elements (Water, Air, Fire), tenanted by substances gene- 
rated and perishable. This celestial body is the abode of 
Divinity, including many divine beings who take part in 
its eternal rotations — the Sun, Moon, Stars, and other 
gods. Every Soul (there being a hierarchy of souls from the 
Plant upwards), every Form that animates tlie matter of a 
living being, derives from this celestial region its vitalising 
influence. 

This doctrine of the divine body, as the source of Soul, is 
not stated in the ' De Anima,' but imported from other 
treatises, to supply gaps in the information ; and the appli- 
cation is a novelty. It is carried out still farther into the 
vexed question of Aristotle's opinions as to the highest 
human soul — the Nous, or thinking principle, divided into 
two functions, receptive {Intellectus Pattens) and constructive 
or theorising (Intellectus Agens). Of the two, the last — 
Intellectus Agens — is the more venerable ; it is pure intel- 
lectual energy, unmixed, unimpressible from without, and 
separable from all animal body. It is more especially iden- 
tified with the celestial substance, and is eternal and im- 
mortal. But this immortality is not conferred on individuals, 
or on the theorising Nous as it exists in Socrates, Plato, or 
any other man : the individualities of these men perish with 
the body. Such is Mr. Crete's rendering of Aristotle's 



[154] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

obscure indications on this subject. Other interpreters sup- Ij 
pose that the doctrine of a personal or individual immortality 
can be inferred from certain passages. Sir A. Grant pnts 
stress upon the remark, — '' It is uncertain whether the soul 
be not the actuality of the body in the same way as the sailor 
is the actuality of his hoat,'' from which the inference might 
be, although it is not drawn by Aristotle, that the sailor could, 
at the end of his voyage, step out of his boat. Of one thing 
we may be tolerably confident, that Aristotle would not pro- 
nounce a decided opinion against so venerated a doctrine as 
our continued existence after death ; although he makes very 
little of it as a motive, in the Ethics. 

There are included in the work, several polemical dis- 
cussions as to Aristotle's doctrines respecting TJniversals 
and the mental origin of First Principles. The paper on 
TJniversals brings out the contrast of Plato and Aristotle on 
TJniversals, shown chiefly from the Categories, wherein the 
Platonic ideas are met by the Aristotelian doctrine of 
Substance, in the First Category, as being constituted by a 
particular or concrete individual, of which the universals 
were predicable. The '^ Hoc Aliquid " is the only complete 
'^ Ens '' or substance, and the Universal exists along with 
it, as a predicate, but is nothing in itself apart. 

As reo^ards the mental origin of our knowledo:e of First 

O c? O 

Principles, or Axioms, this is the question debated in modern 
times under the designation Intuitions as opposed to Ex- 
perience. The supporters of intuitive or innate ideas, or 
common sense, have often claimed Aristotle as on their 
side, and Sir W. Hamilton in particular, has produced an 
array of thirteen citations to that effect. Mr. Grote ex- 
amines all these citations, and shows that in only one of 
them does Aristotle appear as the champion of authoritative 
common sense. The other twelve citations, he maintains 
either to have no bearing upon the point, or to indicate the 
very reverse ; and he charges Hamilton in regard to many of 
them, with mistaking or misrepresenting Aristotle's meaning. 



WORK ON AlUSTOTLE. [155] 

111 a separate dissertation, he gathers together the state- 
ments of Aristotle respecting first, the authority of common 
sense ; and secondly, the origin, in the mind, of the axioms 
or princijpia of science. The result arrived at on the first 
head, is that common sense is an inferior authority, as com- 
pared with science. The second head involves a difficult 
psychological enquiry, that Aristotle was very imperfectly 
qualified to resolve. He evidently inclines to the inductive 
origin of first principles. In the Analytica, he states that 
axioms are derived by induction, from particulars of sense, 
and are apprehended or approved by the Nous or intellect ; 
which leaves an undecided margin between the two origins 
— a posteriori and a priori : and it is not possible to extract 
a definite settlement of the question from his conflicting 
modes of representation. 

It has been made a complaint against Mr. Grote, and is 
the principal objection taken against his work, that while 
rebutting Hamilton's appropriation of Aristotle to the modern 
sect of intuitionists, he is himself guilty of the like offence 
in forcing his author to speak in the language of the a pos- 
teriori school, to which he was attached. I think the charge 
misapprehends Mr. Grote's w^ay of looking at the great philo- 
sophers of the past. It was certainly agreeable to find Plato 
or Aristotle holding his own favourite opinions (more espe- 
cially on ethical subjects) ; but he studied and admired their 
writings altogether irrespective of this consideration. More- 
over, he would not have been flattered by their adhesion to 
his views, in the absence of valid reasons ; his idea of philo- 
sophy was emphatically Ferrier's "reasoned truth." He 
never looked to Aristotle to confirm his own opinions ; and 
would not have considered himself a gainer by forcing a 
coincidence of view out of precarious and vacillating state- 
ments. At the same time, seeing that authority is one of the 
strongholds of the belief in innate ideas (being homogeneous 
with tlie doctrine itself), he considered it worth his while to 
show that Aristotle could not be fairly enrolled among the 
•• testimonies " for that creed. 



1 56] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

In Mr. Grote's exposition of the Aristotelian doctrines 
there is nothino: more characteristic than the stress he lavs 
upon Substance as equivalent to the Individual Concrete, 
basing on the opposition in which the first of the Categories 
is. made to stand to all the rest. Objection has been taken 
to this interpretation on the ground that the treatise Cate- 
gorise is of doubtful authenticity, if not certainly spurious. 
The answer is twofold. In the first place, Mr. Grote did by 
no means overlook the question of the authenticity of the 
Categorise, as is clear from his note in Vol. i. p. 80, where 
he says that he is not convinced by the arguments that have 
been urged against the treatise. And, secondly, the same 
note claims that in any case the treatise should be considered, 
because the doctrine of the Categories is indisputably Aris- 
totelian. As touching the nature of Substance this is so true 
that from others of the works never suspected, there is no 
difficulty in establishing the identification with the Individual 
Concrete, or at least in arguing as strongly as Mr. Grote 
argues for it. 

Complaint has also been made by the critics that the dis- 
cussion on the Canon in Chap. ii. is inadequate to the sub- 
ject, all questions as to the received works being waved aside 
with the general remark that about forty treatises remain of 
authenticity not open to any reasonable suspicion. The 
objection is in so far w^ell founded that there is room for 
much remark both as to the genuineness of some of the 
printed w^orks and as to the form and exact constitution of 
others. Mr. Grote, however, in p. 59 gives it plainly to be 
understood that at the particular places he meant to discuss 
such matters, adding that he should not be able to fall back, 
as for Plato, upon a single authoritative catalogue of the 
works. Besides, it remains uncertain whether he did not 
intend to devote a part of the treatise of three chapters left 
in the MS. between his second chapter and the chapter on the 
Categorise to farther consideration of the Canon in general. 
With the opinion that he certainly had of the authenticity 
of the chief works, he might well be anxious, at his time of 



WOEK ON AEISTOTLE. [157] 

life, to postpone external discussions till he liad worked out 
his exposition of the works themselves. 

The frequently-expressed regret that Mr. Grote had not 
undertaken the Politics and the Ethics is natural and just. 
With respect to the Politics, it was not merely that he had 
been long conversant with both the theory and the practice 
of politics, and without bias except towards the interests of 
the people as a whole : there was a Still deeper reason for the 
regret. Aristotle's leaning as a theorist in politics must 
have been qualified by his own position in Athens, the 
greatest of existing democracies. He was "semi-Macedo- 
nian in his sympathies. He had no attachment to Hellas 
as an organised system, autonomous, self-acting, with an 
Hellenic city as president." He had no love for the 
democratical constitution as such, and probably contem- 
plated with satisfaction its approaching extinction. Yet 
our present knowledge assures us that but for the demo- 
cratical system of Greece, philosopliy would never have 
reached the point that it did in his person ; no despotism 
would have been so tolerant of philosophers as was the 
Athenian people. 

Now the Politics of Aristotle w^as written under circum- 
stances rendering it scarcely possible to do justice to demo- 
cracy. He professes to be an impartial critic of all political 
systems, and probably is so to a very considerable degree ; 
but he wants to be carefully tracked by some one thoroughly 
conversant (as far as a modern can be) with the w orkings of 
the Greek governments. No man has yet appeared so com- 
petent for this task as Mr. Grote ; with the utmost respect 
and tenderness towards Aristotle himself, he combined an 
exact view of his political situation, and all the attainable 
knowledge of the political facts of Grecian history. He had 
occasion to challenge Aristotle's estimate of Nikias, as com- 
pletely belied by the facts before us. And there might have 
been still more to say on his political theories — his search 
after the phantom of a golden mean in political constitutions 
that could always be a tyrant's plea against the popular prin- 



[158] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

ciple, whicli alone had been identified (as Mr. Grote believed) 
with the superiority of Greece, and whose extinction by 
Aristotle's patrons had permanently depressed the condition 
of the world, both politically and intellectually. 

As regards the Ethics, there can be no doubt that Mr. 
Grote's handling of Aristotle's doctrines would have been 
unique. Those doctrines he regarded as not only a great 
advance upon Socrates and Plato, but as in various respects 
superior to some of our modern conceptions. His leanings 
as an ethical theorist are shown in the ^ Plato,' both with 
reference to Plato himself and in the delineation of the 
Cyrenaics and Cynics ; while the present work contains brief 
though expressive notices of Epicurus and the Stoics. But 
the work of Aristotle, so minute in its detail of points re- 
specting virtues, conduct, and happiness, would have afforded 
numerous openings for fresh remarks on the questions that 
come home to every one. 

Many have asked why he might not have postponed, or 
contracted, the Logic, so as to secure the Politics and the 
Ethics. To reply that he followed a natural order of the 
works would not be the whole explanation. The fact must 
be told, that, while he had no small interest in ethics and 
politics, he had a fascination for logic and metaphysics. He 
was one — 

" That unto logic hadde long y-go." 



LATEE PUBLIC LIFE. [159] 



CHAPTER VII. 

LATER PUBLIC LIFE. 

Mr. Geote was one of the original founders of the London 
University, afterwards called University College, and was an 
active member of Council from the commencement, in 1827, 
up to the year 1831. He entered with zeal into the scheme, 
as proposing to impart an education that should be at once 
extensive and unsectarian. He again joined the Council in 
1849, and from that time till his death took a leading part 
in the administration of the College. In 1860 he became 
Treasurer ; and on the death of Lord Brougham, in 1868, he 
was elected President. 

His was one of seven names added by the Crown, on the 
19th of March, 1850, to the Senate of the University of 
London, the others being Lords Monteagle and Overstone, 
Sir James Graham, Thomas B. Macaulay, Sir George Corne- 
wall Lewis, and Henry Hallam. From the date of his ap- 
pointment he gave unremitting attention to the business 
of the Senate, entering into every question that arose, and 
taking a lead in the most critical decisions of the University 
during the twenty-one years of his connexion with it. The 
first subject of great importance that came up after Mr, 
Grote's appointment was the admission of the Graduates to 
a position in the government of the University. On the 
26th of February, 1850, there was laid before the Senate a 
declaration and statement, signed by 361 Graduates, desiring 
that the Graduates might be admitted into the corporate body. 
This was the commencement of a protracted agitation and 
struggle, terminated, in 1858, by the issue of a new Charter, 



[160] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

conceding what had been fought for. Mr. Grote cordially 
supported the claims of the Graduates. His aid in this cause 
was warmly acknowledged in a resolution of the Annual 
Committee of Convocation passed shortly after his death. 

On the 1st of February, 1851, a memorial was presented 
to ih.e Senate, signed by eleven persons (including Sir Row- 
land Hill and his three brothers, and Mr. William Ellis), in 
favour of throwing open the degrees of the University to all 
classes, irrespective of the manner or place of their education. 
On the 5th of April was presented another petition to the same 
effect, more numerously signed. No notice appears to have 
been taken of these applications. On the 19th of November, 
1856, the Senate admitted the London Working Men's College 
amoDg the affiliated colleges of the University. Mr. Grote 
opposed this step, on the ground that so long as the Uni- 
versity required attendance on classes, a line should be drawn 
between those who could give up their whole time to study 
and those that spent their day in industrial avocations. He 
had been hitherto favourable to the combining of certified 
class instruction with examinations as requisites to the de- 
grees. The admission of the Working Men's College (carried 
chiefly by members of Senate opposed to the restricting of 
the degrees to students in the affiliated colleges) shook his 
faith in the value of the class certificates. About the same 
time it became known to the Senate that certificates were 
granted by some of the affiliated colleges on mere nominal 
studentship. This completed the conviction in Mr. Grote's 
mind that the degrees should be thrown open, and granted 
on the exclu.-ive test of examinations. Accordingly, when 
the subject came up in connexion with the Draft Charter, by 
w^hich the Graduates were to be admitted, he supported the 
insertion of a clause for abrogating the original constitution 
as to affiliated colleges ; which clause was carried in the 
Senate by a large majority. Many remonstrances followed 
*this decision, especially from the affiliated colleges. The 
Senate entrusted to Mr. Grote and Mr. Warburton the drawing 
up a report on these remonstrances, which was presented to 



LATER PUBLIC LIFE. [161] 

the Senate on the 22nd of July, 1857. This report was Mr. 
Grote's composition, and contains an exhaustive discussion of 
the arguments of the remonstrants. 

On the 8th of July, 1857, while the Draft Charter was 
under discussion, a memorial was laid before the Senate, 
signed by twenty-four men of science, Fellows of the Eoyal 
Society, suggesting the institution of degrees and honours 
for proficiency in mathematical and physical science. On 
the 14th of April, 1858, the Senate appointed a Committee to 
consider the propriety of establishing degrees in science ; of 
this Committee Mr. Grote was a member, along with the 
Chancellor, Mr. Warburton, Sir James Clark, Dr. Arnott, 
Mr. Faraday, Mr. Brande, Mr. Walker, and Mr. Hopkins. The 
Committee held a series of meetings, and examined the 
memorialists individually as to their views and wishes, and 
afterwards drew up a report in favour of the principle of 
degrees in science. Being reappointed by the Senate to 
prepare a definite scheme, the Committee agreed that there 
should be a Bachelor's Degree, which should rest on a broad 
and comprehensive basis of scientific acquirement, and a 
Doctor's Degree for eminence in special branches. A draft- 
scheme for the several Degrees was, at the Committee's 
request, prepared by Dr. Arnott. It was very much o wing- 
to Mr. Grote's advocacy that the Moral Sciences were re- 
tained in the programme, several members of the Committee 
being disposed to limit the subject of examination to the 
Physical and Natural-History Sciences. On the 7th of July, 
the Senate, with one dissentient voice, adopted the report. 
The degrees were instituted accordingly. The other uni- 
versities are slowly entering upon a similar course. 

On the 27th of February, 1862, he* succeeded Sir John 
Lefevre as Vice-Chancellor. 

It was a singular testimony to the largeness of his views, 
that Mr. Grote's life-long classical studies and associations 
left him free to appreciate fully the great importance of 
science in education. In point of fact, however, he combined 
with his own erudite pursuits an intense avidity for the phy- 

m 



[162] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

sical sciences, along with the metaphysical, and.they formed 
a considerable portion of his reading to the last. He uni- 
formly resisted all proposals to limit the study of logic and 
moral philosophy, or to lower its position in the degrees 
where it had obtained a place ; and, generally, he was an 
advocate for the breadth of culture maintained in the Matri- 
culation and Degree Examinations, as contrasted with the 
restricted number of subjects required for the Oxford and 
Cambridge degrees. 

Another subject that he lost no opportunity of pressing 
was the Education of Women. The Senate had been advised 
that, under the terms of the original charter of the University, 
women were inadmissible to the examiuations, and when 
Miss Elizabeth Garrett, in 1862, applied to be admitted as a 
candidate for matriculation, the application was refused by a 
majority of seven to six. 

At a subsequent meeting of the senate a memorial was 
presented from Mr. Newson Garrett and others, in favour of 
procuring such an alteration of the charter as would extend 
to women the privileges of the University. This memorial 
was taken into consideration on the 7 th of May, and Mr. 
Grote moved : — 

'^ That the senate will endeavour, as far as their powers 
reach, to obtain a modification of the charter, rendering 
female students admissible to the degrees and honours of the 
University of London, on the same conditions of examination 
as male students, but not rendering them admissible to 
become Members of Convocation." • 

The motion was lost by the casting vote of the Chancellor. 

Mr. Crete's speech on the occasion, as preserved in his 
own handwriting, wa§ to the following effect : — 

" I am glad that the senate, by the vote which they have 
passed at an earlier period of this meeting, have agreed to 
maintain the matriculation examination as it now stands, 
with its full curriculum and requirements. In my concep- 
tion the first duty of the senate is to keep up a high standard 
of liberal education, and make their certificates and degrees 



LATER PUBLIC LIFE. [163] 

attainable only by a large and comprehensive range of study. 
Subject to this primary condition, their second duty is to 
throw open their examinations to all who have gone through 
the prescribed studies, and who are prepared to give proof of 
their having done so with diligence and efficacy. 

" My present motion is consequent upon Mr. Garrett's 
letter, which stands on the minutes of this day, wherein he 
intimates that his daughter. Miss Elizabeth Garrett, has gone 
through the studies which give her a prospect of passing 
the matriculation examination of the University of London, 
and his hope that the technical legal objection, which now 
excludes her as well as other women from the examination, 
may be removed by a modification of the charter. The 
senate will recollect that the application of Miss Garrett 
came before us at a former meeting, and that doubts were 
then entertained by various persons whether the legal inter- 
pretation of our charter did exclude women from our exami- 
nations. Since then all doubt has been terminated by the 
opinion of the Attorney-General (taken, not by us, but by 
those who desire to obtain admission). He pronounces that 
such is the legal interpretation, and that females are at 
present inadmissible. 

'' Though I accept this as the unquestionable legal inter- 
pretation, I think that Mr. Garrett is perfectlj^ right in 
calling it technical. It is altogether at variance with the 
spirit of the charter, as expressed in the large words of the 
second clause : 'Her Majesty deems it to be the duty of her 
royal office, for the advancement of re^gion and morality 
and the promotion of useful knowledge, to hold forth to all 
classes and denominations of her faithful subjects, without 
any distinction whatsoever, an encouragement for pursuing a 
regular and liberal course of education.' After reading these 
words, I say, which express the most unequivocal totality, 
and forbid the introduciug of any distinction whatsoever, no 
one would imagine that the first step would be to take a 
distinction so important and so far reaching, that it strikes 
off one half of Her Majesty's faithful subjects, and those, too, 



[164] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

all the members of her own sex. The motion which I am 
now about to make is in full conformity with the spirit and 
with the ordinary meaning of those most comprehensive 
phrases. It goes only to make the legal interpretation of 
the charter harmonise with its spirit. 

"It is known to every one, however occasionally over- 
looked, that the cultivators of literature and science, though 
the majority of them are men, include also in their ranks a 
minority of women. Among this minority of women, some 
have rendered essential service to science and to all who 
seek for scientific instruction. The great French astronomer 
Laplace acquired imperishable renown by the profound and 
original researches of his ' Mecanique Celeste ' ; but an 
English lady, Mrs. Somerville, rendered a service, though 
inferior, not less real, by doing what few men were com- 
petent to do, by adapting that work to English readers in 
her book called the 'Mechanism of the Heavens' ; and she 
rendered a still greater service by her better-known works — 
' The Connection of the Physical Sciences,' and ' Physical 
G-eography' — to which works a large circle of readers, males 
as well as females, have been greatly indebted for instruction. 
The fact thus stands upon record, and is undeniable, that 
there exists a female minority who cultivate literature and 
science, atid that some of the members of that minority have 
entitled themselves to take rank along with the most eminent 
men, even in the most abstruse and diflScult branches of 
science. 

'^ Such being the case, I maintain that when an university 
is constituted, as ours is, for the express purpose of en- 
couraging a high measure of scientific and literary studies, 
the plainest principles of justice require that we should take 
the literary and scientific world as it is and deal equally with 
both sexes ; that we should acknowledge the female minority 
as well as the male majority: and that, after having deter- 
mined proper conditions of examination, we should admit* 
individuals of the sex of Mrs. Somerville to be examined, as 
well as individuals of the sex of Laplace. The onus jprobandi 



LATER PUBLIC LIFE. [165] 

lies on those who contend that the female minority should 
be excluded from our examinations, and none but members 
of our own sex admitted, and a masculine type, and that to 
admit women to the studies suitable for men would be con- 
founding a distinction important to uphold. Gentlemen who 
hold this opinion have undoubtedly a full right to judge for 
themselves on the type of female education, and I am quite 
aware that a very respectable portion of the community 
judge as they do about it. But I dissent from them : I hold 
the opposite opinion ; and another portion of the community, 
equally respectable, hold the opinion along with me. I 
believe that the studies included in our curriculum are 
improving and beneficial in their effect upon the minds of 
women, where women are disposed and able to appropriate 
them, as well as upon the minds of men. Now those females 
who hold the same views as I do on feminine education, and 
their fathers or guardians, are powerfully interested in the 
admission of women to our examinations ; but those who 
adopt the same opinion as Lord Overstone have really no 
interest in the question at all. Whether the University is 
open or closed to women, these females will pursue their own 
educational march in a different direction, without being 
affected by our regulations. They have a full right to do 
this ; but they have no right to make their own opinions 
upon female education binding on all, whether assentient or 
dissentient ; they have no locus standi entitling them to insist 
on closing the doors of our University against all those other 
females who approve and desire to pursue the studies which 
it prescribes. 

"I make no pretensions to exalt my own opinion on 
female education, and that of those who agree with me, as a 
type of orthodoxy, but neither can I admit the right of any 
other person to stigmatise it as heresy. 

" Mr. Garrett says to us : — ^ My daughter is devoting her- 
self to those studies which your charter declares to be 
laudable and to deserve encouragement ; she has qualified 
herself by diligent application to fulfil the requirements of 



[166] 



CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 



your matriculation curriculum. I ask you to allow her pro- 
ficiency to be tested at your examinations, and to give her a 
certificate if she can answer the questions satisfactorily ; she, 
as well as myself, considers that the certificate will be an 
honour and credit to her, and an advantage to her future 
plans of life.' Now to this request on the part of Mr. and 
Miss Garrett the senate are called upon to reply : — ' We 
cannot admit Miss Garrett to be examined. We consider 
our studies as laudable and deserving encouragement only 
for men ; we consider them not laudable, and we intend to 
discountenance them, in women. We cannot grant any 
academical honours and advantages which will tend to 
encourage what is a bad and wrong type of education for 
women.' 

" This is the answer which the senate are called upon to 
make in declining to admit Miss Garrett, and I maintain 
that it is an answer which the senate is not warranted in 
returning. The senate, in making such an answer, and in 
enforcing an exclusion justified by it, would be usurping a 
right of determining by authority a point which Mr. Garrett 
and his daughter have full discretion to determine for them- 
selves. 

" I contend that every female (assisted in the cases of 
those in statu ]^u])illari by parent or guardian) has a right to 
choose for herself among the various types of education, 
which of them will best suit her own aptitudes, tastes, or 
plans of life. The choice will of course be different under 
different circumstances. One w^oman may prefer a highly 
ornamental education, exuberant in accomplishments ; an- 
other may study the full perfection of domestic management 
and housewivery ; a third may take to modern languages ; 
a fourth may address herself to science and the severe depart- 
ments of literature : and, lastly, others may blend all these 
different matters in every conceivable proportion. All these 
varieties will co-exist ; I lay down no uniform rule, nor do I 
imagine that any one rule can be laid down. My argument 
is that the choice between them all lies with the female 



LATER PUBLIC LIFE. [167] 

herself; and that if, among the various types, she prefers 
that which coincides with our curriculum, we ought to be 
the last persons to discountenance or discredit her for doing 
so. It is enough for me to show that our type is one among 
many admissible types of feminine education ; one which any 
woman may choose, if she feels in herself a vocation for it, 
and a capacity of going through the study and application 
which it involves. 

'^ If gentlemen will look at the question fairly and impar- 
tially, I think they will see that the objections in detail 
against admitting females to our examinations are not less 
untenable than the objections on principle. Our University 
would come to consist of graduates and matriculated students, 
in majority male, in minority female. How it can be less 
respectable in any one's eyes from this conjunction of female 
names with male names in our printed calendar, I am at a 
loss to understand. In my eyes it would be more respect- 
able, because I should feel that we had done our best to 
recompense and to encourage intellectual power, combined 
with steady application, wheresoever and in whomsoever it 
was to be found. The only case in which I see the possibility 
of inconvenience from a minority of females is in the mem- 
bership of Convocation. That case I expressly except in the 
words of my motion. The functions of Convocation are con- 
ducted by public meeting and public debate. I see no 
advantage to women in assigning to them a share in those 
debates, nor do I anticipate that they would themselves wish 
it. The great recompense and privilege to them is that 
which they will share with male graduates — authentic record 
of their proficiency, upon proof given of diligent and success- 
ful study. 

" It is well known to all that, as matters now stand, a large 
proportion of the business of teaching in this country is per- 
formed by women : moreover, no small proportion of current 
and periodical literature is also furnished by women. Who- 
ever goes to the great reading-room at the British Museum, 
as I do very frequently, will see there every day of the week 



[168] CHAEACTER AND WRITINGS. 

a considerable number of females among the various readers 
who avail themselves of the privilege of visiting that large 
stock of books. He will farther see these females in the reading- 
room engaged not simply in reading, but in writing : employed 
with manuscript and copy-book, and surrounded by books of 
reference, which plainly indicate that they are occupied with 
some literary work. Now, seeing that this literary work 
and this teaching work is at present actually performed by 
females, it will undoubtedly be better performed by instructed 
females than by the uninstructed. To open for females, as 
our examinations would do, a test for distinguishing the most 
instructed from the least instructed, would be a benefit alike 
to them and to the public. To the superior and the best 
qualified teachers, who look to that profession as their means 
of living and their ground of personal importance, we should 
be rendering one of the most valuable services which could 
be rendered. We should enable them to distinguish them- 
selves, by an honourable and unequivocal characteristic, from 
the number of other women who, as it is but too well known, 
undertake the duty of teaching without any intellectual 
preparation for it, often simply through pecuniary misfor- 
tunes in their families, which throw upon them the unex- 
pected necessity of living by their own exertions. Our 
certificate would afford to them an improved chance of 
obtaining that preference which they deserve for a profes- 
sional appointment in their own line ; and we should furnish 
to those, with whom the appointment is vested, the best 
evidence of intellectual fitness which can guide their choice. 

" The conviction has spread much, and is spreading more, 
among both sexes, that women must be taught much more 
than they have been, to earn for themselves and by their 
own efforts an honourable and independent living. There is 
a larger proportion of women now than formerly who are 
dissatisfied with a life of mere dependence, without any 
active purposes or prospects. To throw open to them the- 
field of professional competition more largely than is now 
done appears to me most desirable as well as most equitable ; 



LATER PUBLIC LIFE. [169J 

but it is an essential preliminary to success in any line that 
habits of steady, accurate application should be formed at an 
early period of life. Wherever a female has that genuine 
aspiration to attain an independent and self-maintaining 
position, which in my judgement is a virtue alike in both 
sexes, the prospect of access to our examinations and certi- 
ficates will tend to stimulate that diligent and serious 
application in early life which is now wanting, because it 
goes untested and unrewarded. Complaints of the general 
inaccuracy of women's minds are sufiSciently frequent to have 
reached every one. Let those women who are superior to this 
very frequent infirmity, and who are prepared to prove them- 
selves superior, have the opportunity of doing so by admis- 
sion to our examinations. 

" An objection will probably be taken against me from the 
other side. It may be said that if females were admitted, 
few would come, and scarcely any one would pass, because 
our examinations are too severe. I might reply by saying, 
that, assuming none to come, we should stand only as we are 
now, with the advantage of having abolished a harsh and 
unfair exclusion. The fact, if it be a fact, is no valid objec- 
tion against my proposition. I am prepared to admit that 
at first very few females will come. It cannot be otherwise : 
for our examinations cannot be approached by persons of 
either sex without careful and special preparation. But I 
do not believe that this will last long. How many will come, 
no one can know until the experiment is tried. We are sure 
that the females will always be a minority as compared to 
the numbers of our sex. Bnt they will be a distinguished 
and valuable minority who have proved their worth, their 
superiority, and their title to confidence by diligent applica- 
tion, and by the fact of having attained, under disadvantages 
of education, an amount of proficiency which even persons of 
our sex, with far greater advantages, have to work hard for. 

"I will now submit my motion as it stands here to 
the decision of the senate. Our present exclusion, on the 
simple ground of sex, appears to me unfair and objectionable, 

n 



[170] CHARACTER AND WRITINGS. 

and I trust that the senate will weigh attentively and dis- 
passionately the strong reasons which exist for abolishing it." 

On the death of Henry Hallam, in 1859, Mr. Grote became 
a Trustee of the British Museum, and, as in the case of 
University College and the University of London, he gave 
unfailing attendance on the meetings of the trustees, and sat 
on the most laborious committees. In 1864 he was also 
elected a trustee of the Hunterian Museum. 

Mr. Grote's published writings, coupled with the record of 
his life and work, reveal the lineaments of a great character, 
the intellectual and the moral ingredients supporting each 
other. In his public career, and in his wide literary research, 
a clear, powerful, and originating intellect was guided by the 
purest aims and the most scrupulous arts. With scholarly 
resources of language, his rhetoric is the servant of trutli. 
At all points merging his own self-importance, he takes 
account of all opposing considerations, and does justice to 
every rival. The reverse of sanguine as to human progress, 
he yet laboured for every good cause that satisfied his mind, 
— science, education, and the self-acting judgment of the 
individual. Differing in many points from the prevailing 
opinions of the time, he avoided giving needless offence, and 
co-operated with men of all shades of doctrine, political and 
religious. In the depths of his character there was a fund 
of sympathy, generosity, and self-denial rarely equalled 
among men ; on the exterior, his courtesy, affability, and 
delicate consideration of the feelings of others were indelibly 
impressed upon every beholder; yet this amiability of 
demeanour was never used to mislead, and in no case relaxed 
his determination for what he thought right. Punctual and 
exact in his engagements, he inspired a degree of confidence 
and respect which acted most beneficially on all the institu- 
tions and trusts that he took a share in administering ; and 
his loss to them was a positive calamity. 



ESSENTIALS 



OP 



PAKLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



1831. 



B 



PREFACE. 



The extraordinary advance of the public mind, on the 
subject of Parliamentary Reform, within the last two or 
three years, is such as the most careless observer cannot 
overlook or dispute. Even the warmest friends of the ex- 
isting system of representation are among the first to 
confess and to lament this ominous change ; and those who 
recorded their disapprobation of the system, at a time when 
its deformities were less acknowledged, may congratulate 
themselves that their efforts, aided by recent events, have 
not been thrown away. 

To any one who examines the signs of the times, there 
will appear a remarkable analogy between the present period 
and that which in France preceded the first French Eevo- 
lution. The supreme power — the source of all the painful 
restraints and burdens imposed upon society — has lost its 
hold on our moral feelings, and is becoming worn out and 
discredited. From ancient habit, and from the imperious 
necessity of one known standard of action, men still pay 
their taxes and obey the commands of the Legislature ; and 
thev have done so from the Revolution of 1688 to the last 
few years, without ever seriously asking themselves what 
title that Legislature possessed to their confidence. The 
mere name of Parliament has sufficed to strike them with 
awe : a body of English gentlemen, variable under certain 
conditions, and bearing the same denomination as those 
assemblies which fought the battles of the people against 
the Stuart princes, has always been and still is sitting at 
Westminster ; and the mass of the people, as it commonly 

B 2 



4 ESSENTIALS 

happens, have been slow to perceive that the relations of that 
assembly towards them are the very reverse of what they 
were in the seventeenth century. A partial community of 
interest between the House of Commons and the people, 
prior to 1688, was created, not by the mode of their election, 
but by common fear of the Crown : and so soon as the 
alliance — equally profitable to both parties — between the 
House of Commons and the Crown, was organized, the divorce 
of the former from the people was an immediate and inevi- 
table result. But no glaring evidence of such a divorce 
appeared on the face of affairs : on the contrary, the atten- 
tion of intelligent observers was called more to the im- 
provement in the administration of the Crown, than to the 
deterioration in the character of the House. Nor can we 
wonder at the general inattention to this latter fact, when 
we recollect that the formalities of election remained un- 
altered : — that tlie great and wealthy, and all the talented 
dependents on greatness and wealth, had the strongest in- 
terest in upholding the degenerated assembly, and in con- 
tinuing to cry up the blessings of securities against the 
Crown, when the Crown, as a separate enemy, had ceased 
to be formidable ; and farther, that the English Government 
during the last century was really both good and free, in 
comparison with even the best of those on the Continent. 

During the last forty years two circumstances have been 
simultaneously operating to sharpen the insight of the 
English people into the real character of their Constitution 
— diffusion of knowledge, and increase of burdens. The 
number of those who read and talk politics has been pro- 
digiously multiplied : newspapers, though their circulation 
is studiously restricted by a pernicious tax, are now num- 
bered among the aliments of life by the population of every 
considerable town ; and an extensive class of independent 
thinkers, unconnected with the leading strugglers for power, 
and refusing to be regimented either as Whig or Tory, has 
grown up all around. While political knowledge and feel- 
ings were monopolised by a small knot of gentlemen, the 



OF PAKLIAMENTARY REFOEM. 5 

whole of their narrow circle, whatever might be their dis- 
sensions amongst themselves, had a separate and exclusive 
interest as against the whole community, and their debates 
were shaped accordingly. But the circle has now been so 
enlarged, as no longer to have any interest at variance 
with the whole community; and the tone of political dis- 
cussion, instead of being purely personal and factious, has 
consisted, to a great degree, of principle and philosophy, 
making their way by slow degrees against established cor- 
ruptions and ancient prejudice. Whoever has watched the 
proceedings in Parliament during the last ten years, on 
the subjects of Law Eeform and Commercial Eeform, must 
have seen ample evidence of this truth. 

But, even if the intelligence of the English people had 
continued unexcited and stationary, it is scarcely possible 
that such taxation as ours could have been permanently 
endured without impairing their good will towards the Go- 
vernment which imposed it. The amount of money drawn 
from the nation and expended by the English Government, 
since the year 1793, is something which defies all power of 
conjecture, and which we can scarcely believe even when the 
Parliamentary returns are summed up before our eyes. No 
conqueror ever wrung from vanquished and despised aliens 
so severe a tribute as the English Aristocracy have extorted 
from their subjects and fellow-countrymen. During the war, 
men paid without murmuring, on the assurance that such 
exorbitant demands would only be temporary, and that peace 
would bring with it relief and abundance : during the first 
years of peace, promises of retrenchment in progress ope- 
rated to appease their discontent ; but when year after year 
passes, and the amount of taxation is still found most 
weighty and distressing, the sufferers become painfully dis- 
appointed and clamorous. Even the most patient and reve- 
rential men begin to inquire into the system which bears 
upon them so heavily, and to look with an invidious eye 
on the receivers of the public money. They judge of the 
tree by its fruits : their painful sense of the effects is trans- 



Q, ESSENTIALS 

ferred to the cause. They listen with attention to criticisms 
on the Constitution, and a new light beams within them, 
when the character, the interest, and the working, of the 
House of Commons, as at present constructed, are made evi* 
dent. Nothing short of impenetrable stupidity could make 
the English people continue to trust a House to which they 
owe such immoderate burdens, and from which they have 
at length ceased to expect relief. 

These two causes taken together — diffusion of knowledge, 
and unrelenting taxation — sufficiently explain the growing dis- 
credit of that system which passed current with the thinking 
men of the last century. Taken as it now stands in public 
opinion, the English Government seems approaching to the 
condition of the old despotism of France, prior to the Eevo- 
lution of 1789. Its anomalies, its abuses, its want of system 
and coherence throughout, its immoral and corruptive effects 
upon the whole community — are becoming too palpable and 
revolting to make it suffice as an engine of taxation. The 
men of wit and eloquence, like Mr. Canning, who undertook 
to deck out all these hideous deformities — arcem facere ex 
cloaca — have passed away, and few new orators venture to 
risk their reputation on the same dangerous ground. We 
may even congratulate ourselves on possessing a Ministry 
whose disapprobation of the existing system has been un- 
equivocally proclaimed. At such a juncture, therefore, there 
is every reason to expect that the perilous consequences of 
keeping up the disgraced machinery will be duly appreci- 
ated, and that some attempts to amend it will no longer be 
postponed. 

But whether such attempts will be sincere or deceptive — 
judicious or mistaken — comprehensive or superficial — is a 
point by no means equally certain. It is nevertheless of 
incalculable consequence. For, if the real defects of the 
existing representation are not accurately conceived — if the 
general principles, from whence alone these defects arise, are 
not laid bare and kept in mind — we run much risk of having 
some new delusion palmed upon us, equally objectionable 



OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. T 

in substance with the present, whereby misgovernment may 
be rendered, for another half century, decorous and endurable. 
The workings of the sinister interest may be reproduced 
under another name, and with a slight variation in the 
external forms, unless the public are taught to recognise and 
detect the seeds of evil in an untried scheme, before its 
bitter fruits shall have been actually tasted. 

There is much reason to fear that the amendments con- 
templated by the Whig Ministry will be of this insufficient 
description — that they will apply themselves rather to clear 
away the obnoxious symptoms of a rotten system, than to 
redress the real source of mischief. The various speeches 
of Whig Eeformers within the last ten years, and the doc- 
trines broached in the great Party Eeview, display so errro- 
neous a conception of the real vices of our representative 
system, and so decided an aversion to the only effectual 
remedies, that gentlemen of that school can scarcely be 
expected to recommend any such Eeforni as will really im- 
part a new heart and spirit to the Sovereign Council. It 
will be something, indeed, to obtain even a partial Keform ; 
and when we reflect on the opposition which the Borough- 
holders are likely to offer, a Ministry may deserve our 
thanks for accomplishing something widely removed from 
perfection. But it is of the last importance that the public 
should accept such a Reform only for what it is worth — 
that they should not mistake it for the whole improvement 
requisite — and that they should continue to withhold their 
confidence from the Parliament until it be so elected as to 
afford them full and adequate securities for good govern- 
ment. 

It is to assist in guarding against this error that the 
present pamphlet is composed. Assuming that some Eeform 
is admitted to be necessary, I am anxious to place in relief 
the leading features which are essential to its efficacy — 
to expose those mis-statements of its real end, and those 
sophisms as to the means, wliereby half might be passed 
upon us for the whole, or changes of name and form for 



8 ESSENTIALS, ETC. h, 

newly acquired securities — and to signalize, especially, some 
of the fallacies which I think most likely to mislead a 
Whig Ministry. In the year 1821, I published a pamphlet 
entitled 'Statement of the Question of Parliamentary 
Eeform,' in refutation of an article in No. 61 of the ' Edin- 
burgh Eeyiew.' That article, ostensibly a review of Mr. 
Bentham's work on Eadical Eeform, contained an elaborate 
exposition of the Ee viewer's ideas on the subject of Parlia- 
mentary Eeform, and an earnest and deliberate recom- 
mendation of the theory of representation by classes, as the 
best security for a good Parliament. Some of the remarks 
which I then offered, in reply to that Eeviewer, appear to 
me suitable to the present juncture, and I shall embody the 
substance of them in the following pages. 



ESSENTIALS 



OP 



PARLIAMENTAKY REFORM. 



When a people first awake to a strong feeling of discontent 
against Institutions of long standing, their indignation will 
seldom be directed in due proportion against all the ob- 
jectionable parts. Accident brings to their view some one 
of the many ramifications of evil in a glaring manner, and 
at an opportune moment : while others, no less mischievous 
in themselves, either are not obtruded so indecently on the 
public, or find it otherwise occupied, and thus escape notice. 
This disproportionate and partial perception not only has 
the efiect of retarding the proper outcry against unobserved 
abuses, but tends farther to keep out of view those great 
principles which connect one abuse with another, and which 
form the common source of all of them. Where the evil is 
thus imperfectly conceived, the remedies, demanded are 
likely to be equally incomplete and superficial. 

Something of this sort is discernible in the clamours 
raised against the Eepresentative System, Men fasten upon 
some special incongruity or abomination, as if the removal 
of it were the grand object to be efi*ected by a Keform. 
Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham, are great cities, 
important enough to have their interests protected by 
Eepresentatives of their own : Old Sarum, Gatton, and 
Weobly are insignificant hamlets, yet their interests are 



10 ESSENTIALS 

better protected than those of the three greatest manufac- 
turing cities in England. As long as the argument for 
Reform is thus put, its opponents meet it satisfactorily, by 
showing that, if the suffrage were transferred from the three 
hamlets to the three cities above-mentioned, all things else 
remaining unchanged, the residents in the latter would be 
neither better nor worse protected than they are at present. 
In like manner some persons exclaim against the open 
bribery at the Liverpool election, or against the severity 
of the Duke of Newcastle in expelling his tenants at 
Newark, and are anxious that such transactions should be 
prevented in future. But here, too, it is easy to reply, that 
little would be gained by tying men down to bribe in secret, 
and with some degree of coyness and ceremony. Nor is it 
without reason that the Duke of Newcastle complains of 
having been held up as a single and unique tyrant, while 
other landlords are accomplishing the same end with greater 
certainty and good fortune. 

Such abuses are indeed indefensible ; but they ought to be 
attacked, not as vicious excrescences on a system sound in 
the main, but as symptoms, rather gross and magnified, of 
widespread internal corruption. The system of representa- 
tion should be surveyed, conceived, and criticised, as a 
whole : the purposes which it ought to answer should be 
compared with its actual workings ; and it should be ac- 
counted a blessing or an injury according as the one of 
these coincides wdth or departs from the other. No Eeform 
can be treated as complete which does not render the Eepre-' 
sentative Body on the whole an efficient and trustworthy 
instrument of gpod government. 

That which the people require at the hands of their 
Government is, protection for their persons, their earnings, 
and their inheritances : good, accessible, cheap, and speedy 
justice, for settling private disputes, and for bringing 
offenders to punishment : together with an adequate public 
force, for ensuring execution of the laws, and for keeping 
off external enemies. No less sacred is the duty, though 



OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 11 

reserved for unborn statesmen to fulfil, of ensuring to the 
poorer classes universally tke largest attainable amount of 
instruction ; I would add, of protecting them against 
indigence, were I not persuaded that well directed instruc- 
tion would implant in them the habit of regulating their 
own numbers, and thus of maintaining wages, by their own 
prudence, at the proper level. To pay for all these services, 
adequate taxes — not insignificant in amount, even under the 
best management — ^must, of course, be levied. 

All this may be summed up in a few comprehensive 
words : but, in reality, it comprises an unceasing series of 
laborious acts and painful supervision, sufficient to weary 
the zeal and fret the temper of benevolence itself: it calls 
for complete devotion of time, on the part of some of the 
ablest heads in the community : nor has the man ever yet 
existed, who could continue engaged in such employments 
without wishing to leave them half-performed. The nature 
of the case forbids that free competition, which ensures 
steady perseverance in the most repulsive private pro- 
fessions : for every public servant is necessarily a temporary 
monopolist. On the other hand, if there be this temptation 
to elude the obligations incident to office, there is a motive 
yet more unconquerable to multiply demands for taxes : to 
create pretences for palliating unlimited expenditure; and 
to acquire ascendency, or gratify liberality, at the expense 
of the public purse. 

To counteract, as much as may be, such overwhelming 
temptations, a feeling of anxious responsibility must be kept 
up in the minds of Government functionaries; and the 
romancers of the last age, complimenting the House of 
Commons at the expense of King, Peers, and subordinates, 
were pleased to assign that House as the body through 
whom responsibility was to be ensured. Not that Members 
of Parliament were supposed to be endued with any inborn 
virtue greater than that of gentlemen in office whom it was 
their business to watch : but their aptitude was affirmed to 
be derived from their being elected periodically by the 



12 ESSENTIALS 

people. Election by tlie people, real or supposed, was the 
ultimate source of security. 

The framers of this seducing picture, misled by common 
parlance and tradition, overlooked the fact that elections by 
the people were a pure fiction : that the persons who elected 
formed only a fraction of the people ; and that to this 
electoral fraction, in the last resort, all the security was to 
be traced. According as the majority of the electors had 
interests identified with or opposed to the * people, would 
be the security for good government arising from election. 
If the former, then security would be real and efficacious : if 
the latter, then not only would there be no real security 
to the people, but the pretended security would be a source 
of great separate evil, inasmuch as the House of Commons 
would be under the same temptations to neglect and abuse 
their trust as the functionaries whom they were assumed 
to control. To take precautions against King, Peers, and 
Public Officers in general, is sufficiently difficult : but if the 
House of Commons and the electors be also interested in 
mis-government, the very idea and possibility of precaution 
becomes extinct; and the phalanx against the people is 
multiplied, strengthened, and rendered more irresistible than 
it could be by any other contrivance imaginable. 

If the electors form only a small fraction of the people, 
they and the persons whom they choose must inevitably have 
a greater interest in conniving at misgovernment and 
sharing in its benefits, than in the obnoxious task which 
a rigid duty towards the people would impose upon them. 
A small fraction, set apart and vested with power, may at 
particular emergencies act in behalf of the people against 
some common enemy : as the old French Parliaments occa- 
sionally resisted the enormities of the court ; but their 
uniform tendency, here and elsewhere, now and in ancient 
times, has been directly opposite. It is fruitless to search 
for any peculiar set of men, exempted by peculiar virtue, 
or by station in society, from this predominant disposition. 
Individuals, superior to these and even to greater temp- 



OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. V6 

tations, may doubtless be accidentally found : but if our 
earth were blest with any such celestial breed, elections 
and electors would be superfluous altogether. Government 
officers might on that supposition be trusted to perform 
their duties without any control, or a King and Peers to 
control them without any Commons. It really implies an 
insult both to King and to Peers to suppose that they can 
derive any accession of virtue from Commons chosen by a 
narrow electoral fraction, and thus under the same mis- 
leading influences as themselves. Whoever is of this 
opinion, must imagine the King and the Peers to be worse 
than ordinary men : a supposition which the true theories of 
Government do not by any means countenance. 

The great question, therefore, with regard to the electoral 
body, will always be, are they few or many ? Do they form 
a large or a small proportion of the people ? If many in 
name and appearance, are they all so protected that each 
elector counts for a separate and independent unit ? Unless 
such questions can be satisfactorily answered, the whole 
process of election will certainly be useless, and, probably, 
worse than useless ; productive by its own working of much 
separate and peculiar evil. 

How they are to be answered in England, Lord Grey in 
vain warned the country by his memorable Petition of 1793. 
The truth then proclaimed, is now better known and less 
disputed. Less than 200 families, partly Peers, partly Com- 
moners, return the majority of the Lower House. Of the 
remaining minority, a large proportion owe their return to 
money or local influence — to electors who vote from hope of 
gain or from fear of loss : and the handful which remains, 
chosen by a few electoral bodies under very peculiar cir- 
cumstances, serve only to show what the House might be if 
the whole system were amended. 

When this wonderful paucity of the real, determining, 
electors is thus made out to us, we see at once that the 
Constitution is now and long has been only an oligarchy 
governing under certain forms and ceremonies. So long as 



14 ESSENTIALS 

it retains this character, do improvement is to be hoped for. 
So long as the House of Commons is chosen by a small 
fraction of the community, the commimity will derive from 
its existence no security which they would not have enjoyed 
equally well without it, from King and Peers only. Paucity 
of the real electors is the grand, the specific evil: multi- 
plication of the real electors, until they cease to have a 
separate interest from the community, must be the vital, 
the effectual remedy. Nothing short of this can regenerate 
the body chosen. It is useless to substitute one small body 
in place of another, under pretence of picking out rich or 
enlightened individuals : it is useless to render the small 
body a trifle larger, until they become paiici, instead of 
jyauciores or paucissimi : it is equally useless to prescribe new 
forms, or to invent new fictions, by way of giving respect- 
ability to their proceedings. Let other circumstances be as 
they may, if the electors remain a narrow minority, elections 
w^ill be in the last result just what they are now : and the 
tree, deriving nutriment from the same pernicious soil — 
radice in Tariara tendens — wdll still continue to bear its 
bitter and poisonous fruits. 

Among those doctrines, which divert the public eye from 
the real vices of our representation, there is none more 
current or more easily received than that of founding the 
Eepresentative System on property — of making i:iroperty the 
hasis of the elective franchise. The sense put upon these 
words, indeed, is neither imiform nor well-defined: but all 
the fluctuations in their meaning appear reducible to 
two leading distinctions, which I propose successively to 
examine. 

Some persons, when they aflSrm that property is the only 
suitable basis for representation, seem to intend that every 
man should be vested with an elective power proportioned to 
his fortune — that the weight of each in determining the 
members to be chosen should be measured by the amoimt of 
property which he possesses. Because (they maintain), the 
richer a man is, the greater the stake which he has in the 



OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 15 

conntry— the greater his interest in the preseTvation and 
augmentation of its wealth and power. If this principle 
were openly followed out, without equivocation or disguise, 
we should see the votes of men graduated and valued : there 
would be voters of one star, two stars, three stars, and so on, 
as there are in the lists of East India Proprietors: and 
perhaps Sir Eichard Arkwright, and Mr. Alexander Baring, 
by virtue of the countless stars which would stand opposite 
to their names, might be deemed qualified to return a 
member between them. 

But the reasoning, on which any such preference to great 
proprietors is founded, is altogether untenable and fallacious. 
Not only is it untrue that they have a greater interest than 
small proprietors, or non-proprietors, in good government, 
but it may be clearly shown that they have much less. 
Among all the obligations which a good government ought 
to discharge towards a body of citizens, there is none of 
which the omission will not be far more painfully felt by 
the small than by the great proprietor. Suppose the course 
of justice to be dilatory, expensive, or corrupt. By all these 
circumstances the small proprietor is ruinously aggrieved: 
the course of his industry is interrupted or cut off: that 
constant aggregation of petty savings, without which he 
cannot leave his family in the condition occupied by himself, 
is rendered impossible ; and if he escapes loss or fraud in his 
own person, he is sure to be called on to rescue less fortunate 
friends or kinsmen. The great proprietor, on the other 
hand, is far less exposed to injury from such sources : he is 
embarrassed by no daily calling : his wealth attracts around 
him a host of private dependants, who conspire to protect 
him against the world without, and enable him almost to 
dispense with the shield of law : while he acquires a power, 
frightful indeed to society, but profitable to himself, of 
dealing out unredressed outrage to others. The state of 
society throughout Europe during the middle ages amply 
attests that which is here stated : and if the administration 
of our law v/ere to recede from what it is now to what it was 



16 ESSENTIALS ^^h 

three or four centuries ago, the blow to the middling and 
the poor would be inconceivably severe, while the great 
proprietors would gain in one way as much as they lost in 
the other. 

Take, again, the economy of the public revenue. It is 
the small, not the great, proprietor, whose interest in this 
desirable object is most powerful. For though the latter 
pays a larger positive sum in the shape of taxes, yet any 
given proportion of a large income subtracts much less from 
the enjoyments of the possessor than the same proportion of 
a small one: and, what is more important still, whenever 
excessive taxes are raised, it is the great proprietor who 
stands the best chance of determining the parties to be 
benefited by them. High taxation is to the rest of the 
community pure, uncompensated, sacrifice: to the great 
proprietor it is sacrifice on the one side, with the prospect 
of patronage on the other. In no case is he injured by this 
description of misgovernment so much as the small pro- 
prietor : frequently, he proves a considerable gainer by it. 

But if the great proprietor is less interested than the small 
in the performance of the obvious duties of government, still 
more is this true with regard to the remote and exalted 
obligations. What member of the community has so little 
to gain by diffusing instruction among the poor, as a very 
rich man ? He sees and hears less of them than any one 
else : and as he is always able to pay for the services of the 
choice few among them, his comfort is scarcely at all affected 
by the good or bad character of the mass. With respect, 
again, to the moral effect of the government — to its influence, 
so prodigious either to good or to evil on the minds and 
character of the citizens. Is the great proprietor more 
interested than others in so constructing all its machinery 
as to encourage probity, industry, and self-denial, and to 
discountenance fraud, rapacity, and improvidence ? In this, 
as in the other cases, he will be found to have little or no 
interest in that salutary moral teaching which would be the 
first of all blessings to every other man in the community. 



OF PARLIAMENTABY EEFORM. 17 

To him the prevalence of such habits would be a loss of 
consequence, of ascendancy, of admiration. His position 
commands him to cherish far more unworthy and immoral 
dispositions among the community : to spread abroad that 
overweening and prostrate veneration of wealth, which not 
only softens all scruples as to the mode of acquisition, but 
effaces true dignity of character, and renders men the pliant 
instruments of any one who can help them on in life : to 
plant in every one's bosom a passion for that show and osten- 
tation, which none indeed can successfully exhibit except the 
rich themselves, but which every one may pant after and 
affect, until he loses both the relish for simple and accessible 
enjoyments, and the feeling of sympathy and brotherhood 
with men of inferior style. How lamentably such defects eat 
up the happiness and taint the springs of beneficence among 
the middling and the poor, is abundantly manifest : how they 
have been fostered in England under the baneful ascendency 
of wealth in large masses, is matter of remark to all who 
compare it with the Continent. 

It is then demonstrable, that the great proprietors are the 
precise persons in the nation to whom good government in 
all its branches is the least essential. And, if so, what pre- 
tence remains for arming them with any peculiar influence 
in the choice of members of Parliament? Loose language, 
assisted by rooted habits of deference and idolatry, have cast 
a dense cloud in men's minds over this important subject. 
Our terminology rudely bisects the community into rich 
and poor — men of property and men of no property : and 
hence an association grows up in our thoughts between men 
of property and the institution of property. The deep respect, 
which deservedly belongs and has always been paid to that 
inestimable institution, is transferred mechanically to those 
who are surnamed after it : they come to be considered as 
its guardian angels and natural protectors : while such as 
refuse submission to them are vilified as if destitute of the 
jnst feelings towards property. But the truth is, that these 
men of property have no other interest in the institution of 

c 



18 ESSENTIALS 

property than that which they possess in common with the 
mass of smaller proprietors, whom we so vaguely huddle 
together as men of no property. To become an instrument 
of benefit to his country, a great proprietor ought to act, not 
upon that narrow interest which connects him with other 
great proprietors, but upon that more extended interest 
which binds him to all proprietors whatever. He must con- 
descend to confound himself with their ranks, to join in the 
prosecution of objects by which he benefits only in common 
with them, and to catch a portion of the modesty, the 
assiduous habits, and the demand for unbought sympathy 
appertaining to their station. In place of that curse of 
English society — small proprietors apeing the imperfections 
of the great — true benevolence would teach the great pro- 
prietors to imbibe the virtues of the small. But never will 
they do this so long as a peculiar and privileged interference 
in elections is reserved for them : so long as peculiar elec- 
toral rights fence them off conspicuously from the remain- 
ing: commuriitv, and thus both entice and enable them to 
conspire for their separate interest ; and so long as un- 
principled expectants are tempted to look to them for 
promotion, apart from the approving voice of public opinion. 
But if there be no ground for privileging great proprietors 
on pretence of superior interest in good government, as little 
reason is there for doing so on the score of superior know- 
ledge and intelligence. Admittiag it for the present to be 
true, that without such aids as can only be procured by 
persons possessing a certain moderate income, such as 100?. 
per annum, no one can acquire sufficient instruction to per- 
form the functions of elector — admittino: that moderate in- 
come affords a just presumption of capacity as compared 
with very low income — yet to rate the understandings of 
men throughout the whole scale in proportion to their 
wealth, would be a measurement altogether perverse and un- 
warrantable. Superior income is not only an inaccurate test 
in individual cases, but it affords no ground for guessing at 
the capacities of men, even as a general rule. A man of 



OF PARLIAMENT AKY REFOBM. 19 

lOOL or 200?. a-year, who lives in a considerable city, enjoys 
opportunities for mental improvement, not perhaps equalling 
those which richer men might command, but far exceeding 
those which the majority of them ever turn to account. 
Individuals who will labour to instruct themselves are in- 
deed rare in this class : but they are also rare amongst the 
classes who possess lOOOZ., 2000Z., or 5000Z. per annum ; and 
the ordinary literature and periodicals form the stock read- 
ing of the one as well as of the other. In comparing men of 
middling incomes, from 100/. per annum upwards, there is 
no presumption of superior capacity on either side : but when 
we reach the very high figures in the scale, it will be found 
that not only is there no presumption in favour of mental 
eminence, but there is a probability not easy to be rebutted 
against it. The position and circumstances of a very rich 
man cut off all motive to mental labour : he is caressed 
and deified by his circle without any of those toils whereby 
others purchase an attentive hearing ; and the purple, the 
fine linen, and the sumptuous fare every day, of Dives, are 
impediments to solid improvement, hardly less fatal than 
the sores and wretchedness of Lazarus. 

I trust that I have now shown that neither on the ground 
of special interest in favour of good government nor on that 
of presumed mental superiority, are the great proprietors 
entitled to privilege or ascendency in the representative 
system. Protection they will of course receive, in common 
with all other proprietors : but if they seek pre-eminence, 
they must be content to earn it by evidences of superior 
worth and ability. Equalize their political position as much 
as you will, the prejudices of mankind are sure to turn the 
scale more or less in their favour : their private munificence 
confounds itself with and enhances their public services ; 
and the eyes of the unambitious many eagerly look for merit 
where they are predisposed to pay deference. 

That property should be the basis of representation, then, 
in such sense as to award greater elective influence to the 
large proprietor than to the small, is a proposition altogether 

c 2 



20 ESSENTIALS 

inadmissible. No sacrifice, indeed, can be too great to pro- 
tect property; but as this institution is of incalculable 
benefit to the whole mass of smaller proprietors, a legislature 
chosen by all of them together, great and small alike, is as 
sure to protect property, as to guard personal safety. And 
the great proprietors will be no less certain of enjoying 
security in common with the rest, than of being debarred 
from all undue usurpations beyond ; for the same insti- 
tutions which shut them out from the latter, guarantee to 
them the former. 

There is another sense in which some persons propose to 
make property the hasis of representation. They are of 
opinion that no one who does not enjoy an income of a 
certain given amount, ought to exercise any political rights : 
to all above that minimum, they would award equal, not 
graduated, elective power ; all below it they would dis- 
franchise without exception. Some indeed are more in- 
dulgent, others more rigorous in determining the point of 
actual exclusion : but the principle of exclusion is the same 
with all. 

The reasonings sometimes advanced on behalf of this 
opinion appear to imply that no person below the appointed 
minimum has any interest in preserving property : that 
property is an institution beneficial indeed to a fortunate 
minority, but injurious and oppressive to the remaining 
multitude ; and that if the interest of the latter w^ere con- 
sulted, not only existing possessions would be divided but the 
institution itself would be swept away. This theory of pro- 
perty, fatal as it would prove to the continuance of the insti- 
tution, except in the most degraded state of the human 
intelligence, is not unfrequently resorted to by aristocratical 
advocates, when they wish to alarm the middling classes 
into uncomplaining submission. 

It is fortunate that a just comprehension of the interests 
of all holds out brighter prospects. So far from being 
injured by the institution of property, the multitude have a 
deep and lasting interest in its continuance. No set of men, 



OF PAELIAMENTARY EEFOEM. 21 

whether all poor, or all rich, or some poor and some rich, 
can possibly live together in society without some rules to 
define what shall be enjoyed by one and w^hat by another. 
One man, by virtue of these rules, may acquire a greater 
amount of enjoyment than another, but the fixity and ob- 
servance of the rules is as much necessary to the continuous 
sequence of smaller acquisitions as to the safe enjoyment of 
the greater. One man, in like manner, may turn the air 
and the sun to greater account than another ; but these 
beneficent influences are alike indispensable to all. Here 
and there a being maybe discovered so destitute and un- 
happy as to be inaccessible to any additional suffering : to 
have no enjoyment open to him, except that which he can 
find unappropriated, or that which he can snatch by force : 
to be, in other words, in the position to which all man- 
kind would be reduced, if no laws of property were known 
or respected. But such cases are rare exceptions to the 
ordinary lot of the many, who derive a steady subsistence 
from the uninterrupted exercise of their industry. Scanty 
as this subsistence too frequently is, it would be intercepted 
altogether if the safety of property became a matter even of 
reasonable doubt : for it arises from the outlay of capitalists, 
made only under assured prospect of return, and ready to be 
withheld the moment future acquisitions can no longer be 
reckoned on. Deprived of all means of recruiting his little 
fund, the poor labourer passes from assured subsistence into 
absolute and irremediable starvation. 

The disfranchisement of the body of the poor, then, cannot 
for a moment be sustained on the pretence that they have 
no interest in the maintenance of property. They have 
at least as great an interest in its stability as the rich : for 
even a temporary suspension of its laws would deprive them 
of existence, while the rich might stand some feeble chance 
of defending and reserving to themselves their pre-existing 
hoard. 

But are the poor wise enough to recognise and act upon 
this interest ? Many reasoners contend that they are not ; 



22 ESSENTIALS 

and hence, in general, the reluctance to bestow on them 
political rights : though there are not wanting persons who, 
inconsistently enough, protest against universal suffrage, 
both on one ground and on the other ; insisting on the one 
hand that the body of the poor have a real interest hostile 
to property, and reproaching the poor on the other for their 
brutish ignorance in not yenerating so sacred and beneficent 
an institution. 

The ignorance of the body of the people is a ground for 
their disfranchisement far more plausible than the former, 
because, to a certain extent, the fact is undeniable. No one 
can dispute that they ought to be, and might be, much 
more carefully educated than they are at present. Yet I 
feel w^ell persuaded that their ignorance, comparatively to 
other classes, has been greatly over-stated, and in parti- 
cular that no evidence can be adduced of unfriendly feel- 
ings, in the generality of them, towards the institution of 
property. 

Is there any error or prejudice now current among the 
poorer classes, to which a parallel cannot be produced among 
the richer ? If they are taunted with their hostility to 
machinery, may they not recriminate on the landlords by 
pointing to the Usury Laws and to the Corn Laws ? If 
their misapprehension of the principle of population is cited 
as an evidence of stupidity, how will the squires and parsons, 
and the parochial chiefs in general, stand exonerated from 
the like imputation ? 

To me it appears that the poorer classes in general have 
an understanding sufficiently just, docile, and unprejudiced, 
to elect, and to submit to, the same legislators whom the 
middling classes themselves, if they voted apart and voted 
secretly, would single out. But assuming the contrary to 
be the fact, as so many sincere reformers believe and lament 
— admitting that the poor are at the present moment un- 
prepared for the elective franchise — expedients may yet be 
found for allaying the apprehensions of the middling classes, 
without either degrading the lower by perpetual exclusion, 



OF PAELTAMENTARY EEFOEM. 23 

or neglecting to provide for the duties of Groyernment 
towards them. 

Reasoning on this admission, we should of course acquiesce, 
under a certain modification, in the principle that property 
should at present form the basis of representation, — not 
under the belief that men of property had any superior 
interest in good government, but because, under the exist- 
ing difficulties in obtaining, and carelessness in diffusing, 
knowledge, few persons below a certain amount of income 
could be presumed to have yet acquired mental aptitude 
for the elective function. It cannot with any pretence of 
reason be maintained, that a man of lOOZ. annual income 
has not enjoyed full facilities for instructing himself up 
to the requisite pitch. A pecuniary qualification, there- 
fore, if fixed at lOOZ. annual income, would embrace no 
one, as far as could be reasonably presumed, unworthy of 
the trust. 

It has been stated that a qualification of 100?. annual 
income would comprehend a million of electors : but if the 
conjecture were not confirmed by actual returns, I should 
think it requisite to lower the qualification until that 
number was attained. No number of voters falling much 
short of a million, could possibly put out of sight and out 
of apprehension that first of all evils, a separate interest 
from the community; and in order to purchase such a 
certainty, it would be well worth w^hile to submit to such 
slight depression in the scale of instruction as might be 
incurred by introducing persons of an income the next 
degree below lOOZ. per annum. Nor could any reasonable 
alarmist anticipate either hostility to property, or general 
unsoundness of view^s, from the richest million in the 
country. They might as soon be imagined to surrender 
England to a foreign enemy, or to plant in it the seeds of 
an epidemic disease, as to invade or unsettle the sanctity 
of property. 

A representative system including one million of voters, 
pfoperly distributed and protected, would be that "almost 



24 ESSENTIALS 

all " in Parliamentary Eeform which a distinguished orator* 
unworthily predicated of the proposal to admit members 
from three or four great towns. 

It would purify the Groyernment, thoroughly, at once and 
for ever, of that deep and inveterate oligarchical taint which 
now infects it in every branch. The Old Man of the Sea 
would be shaken from our backs, never more to resume his 
gripe. The interest and well-being of the middling classes 
would become the predominant object of solicitude, and 
would be followed out with earnest and single-hearted perse- 
verance. Economy in the state expenditure; unremitting 
advance towards perfection in the law and in the adminis- 
tration of justice ; entire abstinence from ambitious or un- 
necessary wars : all these great results would be ensured by 
such a legislature as completely as the most ardent patriot 
could desire. iNor would it fail to operate a wholesome 
change in the public sentiment, and to root out or mitigate 
many of our wide-spread national vices. It would suppress 
that avidity for patronage which now renders so many 
fathers of families petitioners at the doors of the neigh-- 
bouring great : it would lower the value of the rich man's 
nod, and teach men to earn advance in the world, not by 
clinging to his skirts, but by their own industry and their 
own frugality ; and it would eradicate the proneness to 
local jobbing which the imperfect constitution of parishes 
and corporate bodies so fatally implants and so abundantly 
remunerates. Legislators so chosen must be men of first- 
rate intelligence, whose discussions would rectify and elevate 
the tone of political reasoning throughout the whole 
country — men in whom the accident of birth and connection 
would be eclipsed by the splendour of their personal qualities 
- — identified in heart and spirit with the happiness of the 
middling classes — and no less qualified, by laborious com- 
pletion of their own mental training, to serve as an exam]3le 
and an incentive to aspiring youth. 



* H. Brougham, 1830. 



OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 25 

A constituency of one million of voters would infallibly 
bring about these signal and beneficent results, without the 
slightest loss or peril to any one, except to those who are 
receiving undue gains or exercising a malignant influence. 
The very idea of peril to the middling classes is unreason- 
able and absurd : they w^ould themselves form the con- 
stituent body, and the acquisition to them in every w^ay 
would be incalculable. Nor would it prove injurious to the 
tranquil man, who enjoys his affluence apart, without seeking 
to club with the oligarchical confederacy. Such a person 
has really no interest distinct from that of the middling 
class; he suffers at present under their grievances, and 
would partake in their benefits under an improved system. 
To wealthy individuals of superior ability and benevolence, 
it would be highly gratifying and consolatory : since it 
would cut off the perennial source of those abuses against 
which they have been vainly striving in detail. 

There needs but one addition to render such an electoral 
system every thing which the widest philanthropy could 
aim at. A provision should be annexed to it, gradually 
lowering the qualification at the end of certain fixed periods, 
so as to introduce successively fresh voters, and after a certain 
period to render the suffrage nearly co-extensive with the 
community. The interval might be employed in improving 
and extending education, so as to remove the only valid 
ground which is now supposed to command the disfranchise- 
ment of the poor.* 

This very deficiency in the poor, on which the necessity 
of their present exclusion is founded, demonstrates the vast 
importance of impressing on the Government peculiar mo- 
tives to enlighten them. What portrait shall we draw of a 
government, under which four-fifths of the male adults are 
so degraded in understanding, as to be incapable of formino- 
any opinion on the laws to which their obedience is exacted, 



* I owe the suggestion of this gradual enlargement of the 
franchise to an excellent weekly journal — the Examiner. 



26 ESSENTIALS 

and to be destitute, therefore, of that rational attachment 
towards them which assists and seconds so materially the 
operations of justice ? If their stupidity be really so de- 
plorable, as to leave them ignorant whether they owe grati- 
tude or execration to their laws and their legislators, it is 
impossible to make exertions too speedy or too strenuous 
to amend it. Under a government faithful and energetic 
in the performance of all its duties, such mental darkness 
would be rapidly dispelled, and the reason for continued dis- 
franchisement would disappear along with it. But inasmuch 
as among all the duties of Government, those which it owes 
to the poor are the most liable to be neglected, the deter- 
mination of periods for gradually extending to them the 
suffrage would serve as a spur to quicken inactivity, and as 
an admonition to prevent forgetfulness. And it is but too 
possible, that a body of representatives, perfect and admir- 
able for the middling classes, might be less keenly alive to 
the importance of elevating the condition and assuring the 
independence of the laborious many. If they seriously con- 
templated perpetual disfranchisement — if they considered 
the many, not as minors requiring farther tuition, but as 
half-witted by nature and smitten with inherent incapacity 
— they would be slow in communicating to them acquire- 
ments not deemed available to any ultimate end, and only 
sharpening the sense of an humiliating exclusion. 

A constituency of a million of voters, however, even taken 
apart and without any such gradual enlargement, would 
effect a change so great and desirable, that I should deeply 
regret to abate the demand for it by thus showing that it 
w^ould not accomplish every thing. The poor, though not 
permitted to vote, would partake in its benefits : not merely 
by the diminution of taxes, and by such amendments in the 
law as would open to them the avenues of justice, but also 
by the improved character of the wealthy and middling 
class, and by the more frequent prevalence of sober and 
useful virtues in the place of ostentatious frivolity. 

If it be once determined that the . constituency shall in- 



OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 27 

elude a million of voters, it is better to select tliem by an 
uniform income qualification than by any other. No just 
excuse can be given for preference on such an occasion, 
except presumed mental superiority : and though the infer- 
ence derived from income is by no means free from objection, 
I know not any better which can be obtained. If the 
aggregate of voters were smaller, certain professions and 
occupations might be resorted to, as affording adequate 
evidence of mental capacity : but it will be found that the 
richest million will embrace all those whose occupation or 
profession could have been thus singled out as presumptive 
testimony. 

The endless varieties of qualification in different English 
boroughs appear more like an olio of anomalous customs, 
than like the methodical workings of a reasonable Legis- 
lature. But the principle of uniform qualification has been 
impugned, and that of multiform qualification maintained, 
by some reasoners of note, who have insisted on the propriety 
of rendering the representative system a representation of 
classes, not of individuals. That theory I shall now examine. 



In combating the principle of strengthening the great 
proprietors at elections, I have supposed it to be acted 
upon openly and avowedly, by allotting a number of votes 
to each man proportioned to the amount of his property. 
Such a regulation, however, is repugnant to the general 
habits of English elections. Immense as the iufluence of 
great proprietors is at present, it is still exercised under 
a thin disguise, which enables men to quibble about its 
amount, and sometimes, when it suits their purpose, even 
to contest its reality. The conditions under which it is exer- 
cised, unhappily, aggravate its inherent mischief: for while 
they nowise serve to restrain or purify the oligarchical 
influence, they render its modus operandi such as to keep 
the minds of the people venal, open to intrigue in all shapes, 
athirst for irregular patronage, and insensible to any public 



28 ESSENTIALS 

principle. But English thinkers have become familiar with 
this practice of attaining by stealth ends obnoxious to avow : 
and those who, in their plans of reform, leave the olig- 
archical preponderance still unabated, usually seek for some 
new contrivance to screen its working, and to mystify its 
real character. What is called the class system of repre- 
sentation, advocated in the ^Edinburgh Eeview,' as well as 
in other places, is a contrivance of this description. 

The plan of the class system is to divide the citizens into 
various classes ; each consisting of individuals bound together 
by some interest common to them all, but separate from 
the rest of the citizens. Thus we are to have one class of 
merchants, and another of landholders : and each of these 
is to elect representatives, intended to watch specially over 
the interests of their several classes, and to see that those 
interests are adequately protected in parliament. Each repre- 
sentative is supposed peculiarly cognizant of the interests 
of his own class, and under special obligation to promote 
and prefer them. No uniform qualification for voters (we 
are told), either founded on property or on any other prin- 
ciple, could ensure the election of members either acquainted 
with the interests of these various classes, or animated with 
competent zeal to watch over them. The interests of the 
class of merchants will not be protected unless that class 
elects representatives : the same with the class of landholders, 
and with the rest. Whoever would see this theory explained 
and vindicated at length, should consult the article on 
Keform in No. 61 of the ^ Edinburgh Eeview.' 

Let us consider the simplest particular case which can be 
imagined to answer the conditions of the theory. Suppose 
three classes, landholders, merchants, and lawyers, each 
returning one member, or each an equal number of members, 
to form a governing body. Each member comes exclusively 
devoted to the service of his own class : but as no measure 
can be adopted without a majority, two out of the trium- 
virate must combine : and that combination can only take 
place by mutual concessions on the part of the tw^o allies, 



OF PAELIAMENTAHY KEFORM. 29 

eacli consenting to drop such part of his respective class 
interest as may interfere with the class interest of the other. 
Those two out of the three will combine whose alliance can 
be accomplished with the smallest sacrifice of their respective 
class interests. But when two out of the three have com- 
bined, the concurrence of the third becomes a matter of no 
importance. His interest, therefore, and the interest of his 
class, is completely disregarded. The two allies, who, as a 
majority, are in possession of the governing power, would be 
unfaithful deputies of their respective classes, were they to 
concede anything in favour of a colleague with whose co- 
operation tliey can dispense. 

How then is the end answered of affording protection to 
each of the separate class interests ? It is so far from being 
attained, that each and every one of them remains unpro- 
tected. The moment that the members begin discussion, 
it must become apparent that each class interest excludes 
the rest : and that to ensure protection to one of them is 
to deny it to the others. Either the assembly has a majority 
of its members returned by one particular class, or it has not. 
If the former, then the dominant class interest is indeed 
sedulously provided for, but all the classes in the minority 
are neglected and trampled upon. If the latter, then it is 
not the separate interest of any class whatever which is pro- 
tected, but the common interest of those two or more classes 
who combine to form a majority; all the classes in the 
minority being neglected as in the previous case. 

Perhaps the partisans of this system may reply, that they 
never imagine a deputy to seek protection for his class in- 
terest at the expense of other classes, but only so far as the 
interest of other classes can be made to coincide with it. 
But on this supposition the cardinal principle of the system 
is infringed, and the deputy ceases at once to be a class 
deputy. He does no more for the class by whom he is re- 
turned than for the other classes by whom he is not returned. 
He becomes, what he ought assuredly under every good 
system to be, a deputy devoted to the service of the country ; 



30 ESSENTIALS 

for the interest which all classes have in common is the 
interest of the country. 

The fundamental error of the class system consists in a 
wrong conception of what constitutes the interest of the 
country. " We must divide the people into classes (observes 
the Edinburgh Ee viewer) and examine the variety of heal 
and professional interests of which the general interest is com- 
])osed.'" Now the general interest, far from being composed 
of various local and professional interests, is not only distinct 
from, but exclusive of, every one of them. The interest of 
an individual by himself apart — the interest of the same man 
jointly with any given fraction of his fellow-citizens — and his 
interest jointly with the whole body of his fellow-citizens — 
all these are distinct objects, abhorrent and irreconcileable 
in general, coinciding occasionally by mere accident. To 
promote the joint interest of any given class, you do not set 
about first to promote the separate interest of one member 
of it, then the separate interest of another member, and 
so on. You neglect all these, to fix your eyes on an inde- 
pendent end, the joint interest of all the members of the 
class one with another. Just so it is with that grand aggre- 
gate of classes, the community. The general interest is not 
to be attained by pursuing first the separate interest of one 
class, then the separate interest of another, but must be 
studied as an object apart from all these. Individuals com- 
pose the class, but the interest of the class is not the sum 
total of the separate interests of all its members : classes 
compose the community, but the interest of the community 
is not the sum total of the separate interests of all its 
classes. And a governing body which would promote the 
universal interest, must discard all inclination to the separate 
interest of anv class whatever. 

What would be the result of the class representation, as 
its partisans apply their principles, it is not difficult to trace. 
The great body of the community — the multitude — are con- 
sidered to be one class, and are as such empowered to return 
certain representatives. The remaining minority are then 



! 



OF PAKLIAMENTAEY EEFORM. 31 

subdivided into a great number of different classes, each of 
which is to elect members of its own and for its own benefit. 
From this nice subdivision many of the electing classes be- 
come of course numerically small. And is it not manifest 
that these numerically small classes will combine to form a 
majority in the assembly ? and that the classes not included 
in the majority — the multitude among the number — will 
receive no more protection than if their deputies had never 
been elected ? The oligarchical Proteus thus reappears, in 
another of his ever-varying shapes: and the result of the 
system may be described in the words used by Livy (i. 43) 
when he is explaining the Koman class system ascribed to 
Servius Tullius — '' Gradus facti, ut neque exclusus quisquam 
suffragio videretur, et vis omnis penes primores civitatis 
esset." Votes are given to the people, not as a security for 
good government, but as a sop to delude and quiet them : 
the real power remains, where it would be if they had no 
votes, vested in the few of rank and property. 

It may be urged, indeed, that this result arises, not from 
the inherent principles of the class system, but from a vicious 
distribution of the people into disproportionate classes : that 
if the separate classes framed were more equal, and each 
numerically large, no majority in the assembly could com- 
bine without including a number so large as to coincide in 
interest with the whole community. Such an arrangement 
is indeed conceivable : but if, in the last result, the deputies 
are neither able nor inclined to follow out any other interest 
than that of the community, what is gained by the pecu- 
liarity of the system — that of calling the electors together 
in classes — and what would be lost by abandoning it ? Would 
not the same result be equally assured if the same number 
of electors voted in sections not coinciding with each man's 
class or profession, and not suggesting the idea of any distinct 
principle of union among themselves ? 

Not merely would the result be equally assured : it would 
be far more infallible and far more complete. The general 
interest will be most certain of receiving paramount and 



32 ^^^^^K ESSENTIALS 

undeyiating attention, Avhen it stands forth prominently and 
conspicuously as the single purpose of delegation — when it 
enters into every man's feelings of duty — and when it is least 
traversed and overlaid by other objects of pursuit. All these 
essential requisites are frustrated by summoning the electors 
to vote in groups, each animated by a peculiar interest dis- 
tinct from the community. Each class, convoked apart, will 
dwell upon and magnify its own separate interests, which it 
will treat as at least co-ordinate in importance with the 
general interest ; the minds of individuals will be engrossed 
by the feelings of their rights and obligations as fellow- 
classmen ; and the sentiment of a common interest with the 
whole nation will be to a great degree obliterated. A 
member thus elected will carrv to Parliament the sentiments 
of his constituents respecting the treatment which their class 
ought to receive : the interest of the class will be his first 
duty, that of the country his second : at any rate, the two 
conflicting obligations will divide his soul, and drive him 
to perpetual trimming and evasion. No sincere or single- 
hearted patriot can be seen in the assembly. Instead of an 
union of wise and incorruptible legislators, agreeing in one 
common end, and only differing as to the means of pro- 
motino' it — Parliament would become an arena for rival con- 
spirators or opposing counsel, each engaged in serving a 
separate client ; each seeking to twist a grant or to qualify 
a restriction, in his own peculiar sense ; and no two con- 
curring in devotion to the same ultimate objects. 

Such would be the tendency of a representative system, 
under which each member should be chosen by a peculiar 
class, and should be recognised as the special guardian of 
the interest of his class. The more strono:lv and intimatelv 
the members of each choosing body are knit together, the 
more perniciously would this anti-social taint infect the 
legislative assembly. 

I grant indeed that vestiges of it may still remain — that 
it will not be entirely extirpated — under the best electoral 
svstem conceivable. For as each member must be chosen 



OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 33 

by a particular body of electors, and those too voting in one 
neighbourhood, their own separate interest may occasionally 
pervert their ju-^gment, and lead them to elect with little 
reference to their obligations as citizens of the community. 
But under good electoral arrangements this cannot happen 
often, nor in many places* at once; and the more its mis- 
cliievous tendency is denounced, the less likely it will be 
to occur at all. 

Instead of trying to guard against such a tendency, and 
only submitting to it where precautions prove ineffectual, 
the class system actually recognises it as a sound and bene- 
ficial principle of action, and is built upon it as upon a 
corner-stone. Independent of all other objections, the mon- 
strous immorality of the system cannot be too earnestly 
exposed. It treads out and extinguishes every spark of a 
o^eneral interest: it disavows all idea of the rio-hts and obli- 
gations attached to citizenship : and those feelings which 
bind us to our community, the source of so many exalted 
virtues, become obsolete and unknown. In place of an united 
and harmonious nation, what does the system present to us ? 
A mere congeries of unfriendly confederacies, each combating 
for its own separate ends : the strong classes combining to 
prey upon the weak, and grasping at the Legislature as an 
engine of usurpation : the weak submitting from inability 
to resist, and hating a Legislature from whence they derive 
no protection : the members of each class deeming the others 
legitimate plunder, and treating them in effect as aliens 
under the cheat of a common country. All these conse- 
quences are infallible, if ParKament is to be corrupted into 
a congress of class deputies, instead of an assembly of citizen 
legislators. 

A salutary Eeform ought to proceed on principles the 
very reverse of the class system. Far from encouraging the 
exercise of the elective franchise by local bodies and corpora- 
tions, every such union ought to be studiously disseverefl, so 
that an electoral section which returns one member mav seldom 
or never consist of individuals already united by any partial 

D 



34 ESSENTIALS 

tie. It is the individual judgment of each voter which is 
required : a certain number of voters must concur to return 
the same candidate, in order to answer the purpose of attest- 
ing his competence ; but it is neither necessary nor desirable 
that all of them should vote in the same place. By proper 
distribution of the electoral bodies and places of voting, each 
elector might vote with little personal inconvenience, and 
disengaged from any corporate bias. 

In speaking thus respecting local and partial associations, 
I would by no means be understood to dispute their great 
utility when limited to their proper sphere. For local 
purposes, they are excellent and indispensable : and their 
organization ought to be revised and purified with much 
greater solicitude than has ever been hitherto manifested. 
In England the old institutions have liogered on from gene- 
ration to generation untouched by the hand of philosophy : 
salutary in their first commencement, they have not only 
outlived their period of utility, but have passed into instru- 
ments of jobbing and abuse. The history of a corporation is 
the history of the English Parliament. The rise and pro- 
gress of these bodies in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
forms an epoch in the history of society : without them the 
blessings of security would have been unknown ; and the 
European countries might still have been groaning under 
the tyranny of local barons, contentious indeed as against 
each other, but animated with a common spirit of insolence 
and rapacity towards the people. Against such enemies, 
every individual in the nascent town had a joint interest : 
and very imperfect corporate institutions sufficed, while the 
idea of danger to all from the same quarter was predominant 
and overpowering. But when the enemy without ceased to 
be formidable, the leading men in a town found themselves 
possessed of established ascendency over their fellow towns- 
men, which it was tempting to convert to their own account. 
The once useful corporation gradually degenerated into a 
field of disunion and intrigue : freemen remaining distin- 
guished by an indefensible line, and by still more indefensible 



OF PARLIAMENTAEY EEFORM. 35 

privileges, from non-freemen ; and a select junto mal-admi- 
nistering over them all. The subject of good municipal 
institutions and assemblies, which is now attracting so much 
attention in France, deserves no less serious consideration in 
England : but however these bodies may be constituted, 
whether well or ill, it will still be essential to exclude their 
interference as much as possible in elections for the general 
legislature. 

The use and abuse of corporate bodies, and the pernicious 
tendency of the class system in general, is a topic deserving 
of the deeper attenfion, as the existing English representa- 
tive system is in effect a class government, of which the 
landholders form the preponderating partners. Hence such 
plans of Reform, as retain the class system unchanged, and 
profess merely to vary and remodel its component parts, 
come recommended by the imposing assertion, that the 
principle on which they proceed has already been tried, and 
is familiar to the Constitution. 

It has, indeed, been abundantly tried, and its baneful 
workings are easy to be detected ; not merely in the details 
of misgovernment, but also in the perverted tone of the 
current politics. What more common than to hear the 
country described as composed of so many " interests " — 
some more or less great and valuable than others — the 
landed interest and the manufacturing interest — the East 
Indian and the West Indian interest — the Ship interest, and 
the Wool interest! Some persons even speak as if they 
imagined that Parliament met for no other purpose than 
to watch over these great interests; each of which is 
constantly complaining that it does not receive adequate 
protection, and that " rival interests " return so many 
members to Parliament as to stifle its just claims. Such 
pretensions involve the fundamental fallacy of the class 
system. Landlords or manufacturers have sacred claims on 
the Legislature in common with the general body of citizens, 
but they acquire no new and peculiar claims by the fact of 
their sharing in the same occupation or in the same descrip- 

D 2 



36 ESSENTIALS 

tion of revenue. Protection to themselves, as individuals, is 
their indisputable right : protection to their " interest " as 
a separate interest, is a privilege over their fellow citizens — 
a monstrous injustice and usurpation. Because a hundred 
or a thousand men choose to band together, to give them- 
selves a common name, and to talk of themselves as an 
interest,!^ the Legislature to make separate terms with them, 
and to grant them concessions at the expense of the modest 
citizen, who seeks only a citizen's share in the benefits of 
good government ? Yet such concessions, teeming as they 
do with evil, are in the ordinary spirit and track of the 
English Parliament. Its constitution, tainted with the 
inherent vice of the class system, has caused it to be pulled 
hither and thither by the great rival " interests : " it has 
been a theatre for their selfish struggles among themselves, 
as well as for their common encroachments on the body of 
the people, who, as they bear not the name and the banners 
of any particular "interest," have been treated as if they 
needed no " protection " at all. No man can have atten- 
tively studied the English Government without learning, 
that the path of advancement and honour has been mono- 
polized by these potent fraternities, and that the character 
of a private citizen was of little account. Hence the fatal 
temptation, so prevalent wherever w^e look, to join some one 
of them in intriguing for privilege or undue gain, and to 
renounce all sense of obligation towards the people as a 
body. Even virtuous men, who would shudder at injustices 
for their own individual benefit, become perverted with the 
class-morality, and act agreeably to the memorable declara- 
tion of Lord Grey, when he set his order against and above 
his country. 

I abstain from touching, as I might well do, on the en- 
couragement which such a state of the representation affords 
to the most mischievous tenets of the mercantile svstem. 
Though not chargeable with having given birth to them, it 
has assuredly retarded their extirpation. The body of con- 
sumers — the general public, — who are interested in low 



OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 37 

and steady prices, especially of necessaries — constitute no 
" interest/' and are never seen in battle array. It is in vain 
that political economy advocates their cause against the 
sellers, not only forward in associating and loud in complaint, 
but favoured by the erroneous disposition of ordinary men to 
sympathise only with a special and recognised class. 



Having established the necessity of a total number of 
voters, so great as not to be capable of having a separate 
interest from the country, and of taking their votes, not in 
classes, but as individuals, I come to the important question 
of open or secret voting. There is every possible reason for 
taking the votes by Ballot : not one single reason, so far as I 
can discern, for taking them openly. This question has 
been so admirably handled in the ' Westminster Review ' of 
last July, that I might be satisfied with referring to the 
demonstration there given : but it is impossible to pass over 
a subject of such incalculable moment without a few addi- 
tional words to elucidate and enforce it. 

Without ballot, the most extensive provisions of Eeform 
in other respects would be nullified : for the creation of new 
open votes would be only an empty multiplication of names, 
leaving the band of real choosers scarcely larger than it was 
before. Under secret suffrage, every man who has a vote is 
a real chooser : he votes from genuine, intrinsic, preference, 
well or ill founded, for his candidate. His vote can neither 
oblige nor offend : it is an act purely public, and counts as a 
separate grain of evidence to attest the competency of the 
person whom he supports. Under open voting, the reverse 
is true in all points. The number of nominal voters does 
not afford any test of the number of real choosers : out of 
a thousand voters there may not be fifty who have any 
genuine preference for their candidate, or any sincere per- 
suasion of his fitness for the trust. Provided only he be 
exempt from notorious disgrace or indisputable imbecility, 
the grades of superiority above that low minimum are never 



38 ESSENTIALS 

scrutinised. And the election of a candidate, even by a 
considerable number of open votes, far from furnishing 
presumption of his competency, proves only that he has 
either many dependents, or an unusual number of influ- 
ential private friends, who are willing to make his cause 
their own. 

If reasons were needed against open voting, the disgusting 
details of an English election would abundantly supply 
them. The candidate convenes an active committee of pri- 
vate friends, who look over the list of voters, and set about 
to consider by what weapons or baits each of them is assail- 
able. Some of them are known to be openly venal : others 
are dependent tenants on the estate of Lord A. or Mr. B. : a 
third class are tradesmen, and supply the families of Lord C. 
and Mr. D. : of the remainder, several are comfortable in 
their incomes, but are fond of shooting, and prize highly the 
permission of going upon a neighbouring manor, or are* anx- 
iously seeking intimacy with some families wealthier than 
themselves. To track out all these ramifications of each 
voter's peculiar interest — to penetrate the hidden sources of 
his hopes and fears — and to hook his vote through the me- 
dium of one or the other — is the business of an election com- 
mittee. It is futile to prohibit any part of their proceedings, 
while the means and the motive to practise them are left 
open : and however the number of open voters may be mul- 
tiplied, it will only become more troublesome, but by no 
means less practicable, to govern the majority of them by pri- 
vate hopes and fears. At certain grand periods of excitement 
numerous voters may break loose, and give open utterance 
to their faith with the exalted constancy of martyrs ; in 
ordinary times, they are tame and sequacious, and a thou- 
sand of them are marshalled with hardly less facility than a 
hundred. 

In spite of the crooked manceuvres so universal in elec- 
tioneering, there are persons who dwell much on the empty 
and fallacious distinction between dependent and independent 
voters. A poor voter, they affirm, is by his station depen- 



OF PAKLIAMENTARY EEFOEM. 39 

dent, and this is urged as one reason for withholding votes 
from the poor : while a person of greater affluence is spoken 
of as if his position afforded security for his independence. 
But the test here assumed, for measuring dependence and in- 
dependence, is equivocal to a high degree. That man is the 
most dependent who is liable to suffer the greatest and most 
irreparable evil at the hands of some one or some few 
others ; and many who enjoy a most eligible position are, for 
that very reason, exposed to far more alarming liability of 
evil than simple poverty ever entails. A poor artisan or 
labourer may be displaced, but the number of equally good 
situations open to him is so considerable, that he may speedily 
hope to repair his loss. But the higher and better paid 
officers have more to lose by dismissal, while the number of 
such places is so limited as to afford them little chance of an 
equivalent elsewhere. It seems evident, therefore, that shop- 
men, clerks, and highly paid functionaries of every de- 
scription, being greater sufferers by arbitrary displacement, 
are really more dependent than artisans or servants, and 
consequently that poverty is no measure of the degree of 
dependence. 

But it is superfluous to verify the graduation of the 
scale, if we can satisfy ourselves that he who is called 
thoroughly independent is exposed to powerful private 
influence, more than sufficient to pervert any open vote. 
I would fain ask whose position is so fortunate as to enable 
him to deny this ? Look at the tradesman who is making 
500Z. or lOOOZ. per annum, and the manufacturer or merchant 
who is making 2000Z. or 3000Z. Each of them acquires his 
income out of fractions, some large, some small, arising 
from connections profitable in various degrees ; and the best 
of these connections think themselves fully entitled to ask 
for his vote, whenever they take interest in an election. If 
the request be refused merely on public grounds, displeasure 
and provocation are infallible: and the refuser incurs the 
chance of pecuniary loss, of seeing himself supplanted by 
rivals, and of being stigmatised as ungrateful. How is this 



40 ESSENTIALS 

consistent with the pretended independence of his position ? 
Even the man whose income is already treasured up, finds 
many individuals around him whom it is exquisitely pleasing 
to oblige and highly distressing to offend, though their 
political views may be such as he entirely disapproves. Is 
it not true, then, that the man most independent by position 
and circumstances is yet so fettered and so vulnerable, as 
to lay him under temptations far too strong for average 
political integrity ? 

So long as voting is open, therefore, the votes of the 
middling and of the affluent will be determined, in the 
majority of cases, by some one of the innumerable varieties 
of private influence : nor is the Ballot less essential to purify 
their votes than to liberate those of the poor. I duly ap- 
preciate the beneficial effects of the private sympathies, and 
of that readiness to oblige and to requite, without which life 
would be a desert : but if the business of voting is to be 
subservient to a public end, it ought to be abstracted alto- 
gether from the sphere of their interference. Is it at all 
less detrimental to the main purpose of voting — the advance- 
ment of the wisest and best men in the community into the 
Legislative Assembly — that I should vote to please a friend, 
to return an obligation, or to conciliate a customer, than 
that I should sell my vote for ten pounds, or for a place in 
the Excise? It is melancholy to confess that on this im- 
portant topic the morality both of rich and poor has yet to 
be formed, nor can we hope ever to see it formed except by 
means of the Ballot. Most men consider their vote merely 
as a means of rendering service to a friend ; and dispose of 
it exactly on the same principles as they would bestow any 
other favour. How abominable would be the course of 
justice, if they forgot their trust as jurors in the same cool 
and systematic manner : if one man thought himself au- 
thorized to solicit, and another to grant, a verdict in favour 
of plaintiff or defendant ! Yet the function of voter is no 
less a public trust than that of juror : nor would the mischief 
of corrupt juries, prodigious as it is, surpass that of corrupt 



OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 41 

voting. It is fruitless to admonish men on the pernicious 
tendency of what is daily before their eyes, so long as the 
misleading influence is left in full vigour and application : 
but if the door be once shut against such influence, there is 
nothing to prevent voting from being assimilated to other 
public trusts, and from becoming really conducive to its 
peculiar and all-important purpose* 



* The duty of a voter to the public has been banished, not only 
out of fact and society, but also out of political reasonings and 
conceptions. Hence the extraordinary difference in the public senti- 
ment between the promise made by a voter to support a particular 
candidate, and the promise made by a juror to deliver a particular 
verdict. To be known to have made such a promise as juror, would 
suffice to brand a man with infamy. But assuming that he has been 
guilty enough to make it, and that he repents prior to the verdict, 
will it not be generally considered that he commits less evil by 
breaking his promise than by consummating an injustice? The 
indignation of mankind is directed, not against the violation of such 
a promise, but against the making it and the asking it. 

Were voting considered as a public trust, the like feeling would 
prevail with respect to a voter. But it is considered as a matter 
purely private and optional ; so that all which the public exacts of 
a voter is that he shall keep a promise when he has once made it ; 
and strenuous opposition has been raised to the Ballot, on the ground 
that it would permit him to violate his promise without detection. 
Objectors on this ground forget that no promise, interfering with 
the due execution of a public trust, can be innocently made ; and 
that with respect to culpable promises, the desirable object is to 
prevent them from being ever asked or ever made, not to ensure 
their strict observance after they are made — to preserve men from 
ever entangling themselves in that trying position, wherein they 
can only choose between violating a promise or forfeiting a trust. 
Now it is obvious that electors are much less likely to be called 
upon to promise when they vote secretly, than when they vote 
openly : and where few promises are asked, few promises can be 
broken : so that the fact which the objection assumes, that pro- 
mises will be habitually broken, is really untrue ; while the end 
is also attained, of removing one great temptation to an undue 
species of promise. 



42 ESSENTIALS 

I had the opportunity of being present, a little before the 
French elections of June, 1830, at a private preliminary 
meeting of French electors in one of the arrondissements not 
far from Paris. About thirty electors met, to estimate the 
chances and to concert measures for the success of their 
candidate in the approaching contest. They called over the 
electoral list, and each person present pronounced respecting 
those whom he knew or those who lived near him, whether 
they were likely to be supporters or opponents. For such 
as were not thoroughly known, attempts were made to guess 
at their political sentiments or at their private partialities. 
But never was the slightest hint started of winning over a 
questionable voter by solicitation and intrigue, or of ap- 
proaching his bosom by those invisible bye-paths which an 
English electioneerer so skilfully explores. Such artifices 
appear to have been considered in France too degrading for 
any one except the agents of Charles X., who did indeed 
employ them as much as was practicable, and who of course 
spared no pains to nullify and elude the Ballot. 

Among the several objections urged against the Ballot, 
there is one which not only admits, but is even founded 
upon, the marvellous debasement produced by the English 
system of open voting. Some persons allege that under 
secret voting scarcely any elector would go to the poll : 
that when his vote could neither gratify a friend nor repay 
a benefactor, he could not be induced by a " cold sense of 
duty" to undertake the inconsiderable labour of going 
occasionally to a neighbouring voting place. So low is their 
estimate of the strength of the public affections amongst 
a commimity whom yet they describe as pre-eminently 
virtuous, and under a Government which they extol as little 
short of perfection ! To me such eulogies either on the 
people or on the Government seem little better than a 
childish self-adulation : yet I never could have supposed an 
average Englishman so dead to all public feeling, as to 
think a good member too dearly purchased at the cost of a 
short walk or ride — (for the labour of voting need be no 



OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 43 

greater) — once every year, or every two or three years. 
Assuming the fact, however, to be true, the expediency of 
a secret suffrage Is not impeached by it. Though few votes 
be actually given, yet as every vote denotes a genuine 
preference and esteem, some rational ground is really ac- 
quired for believing the person chosen to be a superior man : 
whereas a hundred times the number of privately-determined 
votes proves literally nothing in favour of his competency 
as a Legislator. Better take the evidence of ten sincere 
truth-tellers, than that of a thousand suborned witnesses, 
who speak without caring whether what they attest is true 
or false. 

Others object that the Ballot will be found in practice not 
to produce secrecy, inasmuch as a man may tell and will tell 
how he has voted. They omit to indicate at the same time 
the test whereby they mean to determine whether he speaks 
truth or falsehood. Of what value is a man's statement, 
when he may violate truth without any chance of detection, 
and when he has a direct interest in repelling tyrannical 
inquisition by justifiable deceit ? His vote may perhaps be 
guessed : but that is not enough ; it must be actually and 
positively known, before a patron can make his displeasure 
or his satisfaction contingent on the direction of it. And, 
indeed, the virulent opposition of the vote-commanders to 
the Ballot, plainly demonstrates how little faith they them- 
selves repose in this miserable quibble. 

There are others who exclaim loudly against the mischiefs 
of secrecy, and against the lying and hypocrisy of the Ballot, 
forgetting that they are themselves habitually employing it 
in their clubs, and that they can therefore scarcely be 
treated as serious when they brand it with such contumelious 
epithets elsewhere. Secrecy is good or bad according as it 
conduces to a good or a bad end : and in the case of voting, 
it may be proved to be essential to the most beneficent of 
all ends. And as a vote given by Ballot quickly comes to 
be ranged among matters unbecoming to pry into — ^just as 
no man ever thinks himself entitled to ask about the tenor 



44 ESSENTIALS 

of his friend's will, or the amount of his property — so there 
really would be neither lying nor hypocrisy, except where a 
shameful intrusion had been employed to wring from the 
voter his secret, and where the lie was a pardonable shelter 
against the greater evil of oppression. " In order that all 
men (observes Dr. Johnson)* may be taught to speak the 
truth, it is necessary that all likewise should I'earn to hear 
it." When gentleness, sympathy, and tolerance of dissent 
shall have become habits of action in the superior, evasion 
and concealment in the inferior will disappear of themselves. 
But until the former has thrown away his spear, it is 
monstrous to call upon the latter to perform his duty 
without a shield. 

But there is one argument against the Ballot which I 
never hear advanced without indignation. It is to be with- 
held because it would cut down the influence of the great 
proprietors. Wheresoever we turn in Reform, these tre- 
mendous giants are posted to bar our progress — 

" Apparent dirae facies, inimicaque Trojae 
Numina magna Deum." 

It is indeed true that the Ballot would materially abridge 
their influence : and any reform which did not effect that 
end would be hollow and delusive. Far from denying or 
disguising such a result, the advocates of the Ballot avow 
and exult in it. And they ask at the same time what peril 
would ensue if the influence of the great proprietors were 
so far cut down as to be proportioned to their individual 
wisdom and merit, not to the size of their rent-rolls ? In 
order that this class, against whom mankind have never 
yet provided adequate safeguards — insolent bullies and 
ravish ers in the Grecian States; cruel ejectors of neigh- 
bouring poor proprietors in the Roman Republic ; sticklers 
for the Fist-right,t in the middle ages, against the growing 



* Bamhler, No. 96. 

t I take the liberty of translating literally the significant German 
compound Faust-rechL 



OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 45 

ideas of law and order in the cities ; spoilers of the church 
property, for their own benefit, in the sixteenth century; 
auxiliaries of Charles Stuart against English liberty in the 
seventeenth ; authors, in the eighteenth and nineteenth, of 
the devouring war and the Corn Laws ; in an age of crime, 
the most high-handed criminals; in an enlightened time, 
the most obstinate foes of improvement. In order that 
this class may outbid friendless merit and ride down con- 
scientious opposition, are we to dupe the people with the 
spurious forms instead of the essence and virtue of an 
electoral security ? To cheat them with the outward and 
visible sign, while we rob them of the inward and spiritual 
grace ? To invest them with an important public trust, 
designing beforehand that they should barter it away each to 
his patron-aristocrat, and thus to efface in their minds, by 
Legislative authority, the idea of obligation to the com- 
munity ? The influence of these elevated beings must indeed 
be as the dew from Heaven, if it be worth purchasing at the 
cost of all the evils of a simulated suffrage. If they must 
have more votes than one — for the influence which they 
claim means nothing else — let them become three-star, 
four-star, or twenty-star men, leaving to the humbler citizen 
his one poor vote secret and free. It will be bad enough 
to exalt them thus into a privileged few : they may spare 
us the bitterness of making them, besides, extorters and 
corrupters of other men's votes. 

The importance of the Ballot, on every ground, as well 
in its direct and immediate as in its remote and in- 
direct effects, appears to me vast and overwhelming. 
But it cannot, undoubtedly, be rendered efficacious, if the 
number of voters who concur to return a single member is 
permitted to be small. In that case, an opulent man might 
bribe them in the mass, covenanting to pay to each a certain 
sum after his election. But if the number be large, it will 
become too expensive thus to pay all in order to purchase 
a majority. In my opinion, no section or district which 
returns a member ought ever to consist of less than 2000 



46 ESSENTIALS 

voters : every section ought to include an equal or nearly an 
equal number ; and if the necessity of obtaining a certain 
aggregate of returns out of a certain aggregate of voters 
permitted, it would be an improvement to make the number 
of voters in each electoral section even greater than 2000. 
Every increase in the number of secret votes, whereby a 
candidate is chosen, furnishes increased presumption of his 
superior qualifications. 



In this point of view, the number of members in the 
House of Commons becomes an important subject of •dis- 
cussion, because the smaller its total, the greater the number 
of voters who can be allotted to each separate returning 
body. The present House would be foimd far too numerous 
for the dispatch of business, if all the members were con- 
stant at their posts. The real working persons in it are 
notoriously a very small proportion : two hundred members 
constitute a large, three hundred a very large, attendance ; 
and questions which draw together a greater number than 
three hundred are rare and unusual indeed. Three hundred 
really assiduous members appear to me amply sufficient to 
prosecute the business of legislation : and the surplus above 
that number, if any there were, would be found rather to 
impede than to forward the ends for which they are 
assembled. To lessen the total number of members, too, 
as much as can be done without delaying the public busi- 
ness, is advantageous in other ways : it renders the post 
itself more conspicuous and honourable : it fastens public 
attention more steadily upon each member's parliamentary 
conduct ; and it will of course be easier to find three hun- 
dred highly qualified persons in the country than five 
hundred, so as to avoid the necessity of resorting to a lower 
scale of intellect. 

If the aggregate of voters were a million, and the 
members returned to Parliament 300, no returning body 
need include less than 3300 voters : if the members of 



OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 47 

Parliament were 500 in number, each returning body might 
then have 2000 voters allotted to it. A body of 2000 
electors, voting secretly, and voting so as to occasion no 
expense, could not be tampered with by the most expert 
electioneerer. The member whom a majority of these return, 
must be a person of some public reputation ; a person 
believed to possess talent and worth, not merely equal, but 
much superior, to the average of his fellow-citizens. 

In looking over the manifold enormities of our present 
system of representation, it will generally be found that any 
one defect, if left uncorrected, suffices to neutralize the 
remedies applied to the rest. If voters are habitually called 
upon to vote at a distance, one of two consequences will 
ensue : either they will not vote at all, or they will find 
means to shift upon some one else the expense of their 
journey. In the first case, the benefit of their judgment is 
lost : in the second, solicitation, intrigue, and preponderance 
of the half-qualffied rich man, are revived and rendered 
available. It is essential to any good system of voting, that 
an elector should vote at or near the place of his habitual 
residence. Any parish, any fraction of a parish, or any 
cluster of parishes, which comprised 200 voters, might have 
a separate polling-place, with proper apparatus : ten such 
being combined to form one returning body. Less than 200 
(or such a proportion of them as chose to come) ought not 
to make use of the same ballotting-box : with a number 
smaller than this, secrecy could not be effectually guaran- 
teed. All the votes might thus be taken on the same day, 
with little inconvenience to any one, and hardly any neces- 
sary expense. 

The existing distinction into Town and County Elections, 
without any reference to the number of voters contained in 
each county or in each town, appears to me indefensible and 
injurious in every way. The grand circumstance to be con- 
sidered in the electoral sub- divisions is the number of voters 



48 ESSENTIALS 

included in each returning body, so as to ensure that no 
Member enters the House of Commons who has not ob- 
tained a certain minimum of votes, and so as to equah'ze, 
besides, the value of each man's vote, or the elective force 
vested in each voter. For, if one man votes in a returning 
body of 200, and another in a returning body of 2000, — the 
vote of the first is worth ten times as much as the vote of 
the second: and comparing the elective force assigned to 
each, or the total effect which each is allowed to produce 
upon the representative body, the result is, as if the first 
man had ten votes and the second only one. It is obvious 
that such inequality, if pushed to a certain extent, would of 
itself be enough to corrupt a system of representation in- 
volving all the other requisite conditions ; nor can any 
reason be given why even a small inequality should be 
allowed. 

When the voters are polled in small fractions, at different 
places, and all on the same day, the enormous evils attending 
populous elections as now transacted would altogether dis- 
appear. The saturnalia of our present elections are enough 
to shock any reasonable man, and to alienate him, not only 
from the external show of popular control, but even from the 
people themselves. The riot, drunkenness, and fighting in 
the streets, form an appropriate parallel and accompaniment 
to the low manoeuvres of electioneering leaders behind the 
scenes. Yet there are those who contend that these dis- 
graceful and noxious tumults are essential to the existence of 
public spirit, and that they serve to nurture both the sublime 
emotions and the sense of mutual right and duty which con- 
nect a man with his fellow^-citizens. To me they appear no 
less inconsistent with genuine patriotism than with private 
decency. A great public question is discredited and rolled 
in the dirt by being converted into the war-w^hoop of a hired 
mob, in whom the fiction of a public concern serves only to 
supersede the restraints of private life, without substituting 
any better feeling than that of devotion to their temporary 
employer. The band of sicarii organised by Clodius against 



OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 49 

his enemies at Eome could not be more destitute of attach- 
ment to the public welfare. Indeed, the whole transaction 
is more akin to a pugilistic contest or a horse race, than to 
a selection between two opponents, each professing to be 
qualified for the grandest function which society has to fill 
up. The resemblance would be complete in almost all points, 
if the backers of pugilists were to carry into the ring 
banners inscribed with some popular question or high 
sounding abstract word : — Dutch Sam and the Kevolution of 
1688 ! Neal and Purity of Election ! When the knuckles 
and wind of Dutch Sam had achieved a triumph, his friends 
would retire, confirmed in their attachment to the Ee volution 
of 1688, and exulting in the idea that the victory just gained 
would do much to imprint its benefits on the public mind. 

There are some few cases of exception, even as matters are 
at present, where the population really take a sincere interest 
in the event of the election. But the evil of fixing one 
single place of voting, and of congregating men in large 
numbers about it, is still very great, though of a difierent 
character. Inflamed by one common sentiment, the crowd 
cannot be restrained from venting, either by words or by 
action, their antipathy against opposite voters, who are 
abused or pelted, so as to drive away the timid, and to furnish 
a pretence to the indolent for remaining at home. Such 
bursts of wrath, where no effective and tranquil system of 
control has as yet been organised on behalf of the people, 
may perhaps be pardonable against a flagitious statesman : 
against a private citizen, they are altogether vicious and 
inexcusable, and they fatally counteract the salutary lesson, 
so hardly learnt by any one, of tolerance towards disin- 
terested dissent. Nor does an election, so taken, exhibit 
a fair result of the judgment of all the voters nominally 
appealed to. 

Every evil incidental to elections would be done away 
with, and the efficacy of the system as a means to good 
government greatly strengthened, if voters polled secretly, 
in small bodies, and in different places at the same time. 

E 



50 ESSENTIALS 

One more addition remains to be made to the essentials of 
Parliamentary Reform : — increased frequency of election. 
A peaceful citizen, accustomed to elections as they are now, 
may well feel repugnant to such invasions of his comfort at 
shorter periods ; but when it has been shown that voting 
may be so conducted as to molest no man's tranquillity, a 
most injurious prepossession will be dispelled, on this truly 
important part of the field. 

Election for seven years certain has almost the same effect 
as election for life. So faintly is the imagination affected 
by a contingency seven years removed, that if a man can be 
trusted to do well for that long period, he might also be 
trusted to do well, though chosen for life. What would be 
said of the prudence of any one, who, having selected a 
particular attorney or physician, should enter into a contract 
binding himself to resort to no other for the same space of 
seven years? Would he not be universally considered to 
have taken the most effectual measure for making them 
remiss and indifferent ? 

On the other hand we find, in the actual course of affairs, 
that although a man may change his lawyer or physician 
any day, he very rarely does change : because these practi- 
tioners, knowing that if they do not give satisfaction, they 
will immediately lose business, take care to be attentive and 
zealous in their duty. 

I think it may be stated, as a general fact, that when a 
trust is revocable at pleasure, the person entrusted acts so as 
not to deserve displacement, and in general is not displaced. 

This is precisely what we desire to see happen with respect 
to Members of Parliament : and the mode of ensuring it will 
be, as in other cases, by conferring on them their trust for 
very short fixed periods. One year, in my opinion, would be 
quite sufficient, and better than any longer period : two 
years would be tolerable ; three years seriously objectionable 
on account of its length ; and any period longer than ihxep 
years not to be entertained for a moment. 

Many persons are alarmed at the idea of annual elections, 



OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 51 

as if they imported actual cHange of members every year. 
This would, indeed, be a very formidable evil, — an evil only less 
than that of retaining dishonest or incompetent members. I 
feel -persuaded that their real operation would fce. directly 
the reverse: that a naember would retain his seat longer 
under annual elections than under any other, because the 
security for his good conduct would be so much more com- 
plete. The ideas of accountability and obligation, and the 
necessity of maintaining a high reputation with the public, 
could never be absent from his mind : the shortness of the 
period would leave him little hope of making up the negli- 
gence of one month by increased diligence during the re- 
mainder; and as he would indulge a reasonable hope of 
re-election, if he only avoided occasioning painful disappoint- 
ment to his constituents, the motives to zeal and good con- 
duct would be really at their maximum. If a man possesses 
the confidence of an electoral body in 1831, and is under 
such paramount and continuous motives to do his very best, 
can he be supposed likely to lose it in 1832, except by some 
most rare and unusual occurrence ? On the other hand, if 
the certain duration of his trust be lengthened, the motives 
to the best possible discharge of it are proportionally en- 
feebled, and he is more likely to do or to omit something 
whereby he would deserve to forfeit, and would really forfeit, 
the confidence of his constituents. It is only under the 
shorter duration that the desirable result will be ensured, of 
members being continued, simply because they deserve to be 
continued, in possession of their trust. 

Some persons apprehend that annual elections would make 
a member too attentive to the approaching end of his trust, 
and that they would subjugate the independence of his 
private judgment too much to the voters by whom he was 
to be re-chosen or displaced. But it is to be recollected 
that a voting section constituted as I have supposed — ^voting 
by ballot, in small divisions, and without any separate local 
tie — would be nothing more than a fraction of the general 
public, and that, consequently, the same behaviour which 

E 2 



52 ESSENTIALS 

sustained his reputation with the general public, would 
also sustain it with his own peculiar voters. The only 
prejudices, therefore, to which he will be called upon 
to bend, are those of the general public. To these 
every man must bend, more or less: and the only person 
who can hope to combat them effectually and foeneficially? 
will be he who has established a high reputation on other 
grounds for wisdom and virtue. The motive to establish and 
sustain such a reputation will be highest in the bosom of 
the member chosen for a year, whose authority will therefore 
will be the greater when he stands up against any special 
prejudice. Nor do I imagine that he would be backward in 
such an opposition, so far as prudence will permit. For if 
he timidly chimes in with the prejudice, and if some bolder 
rival takes out of his hands the task of enlightening the 
public, comparative discredit is sure to await him. The 
path of evasion will be found hardly less dangerous, and far 
less elevating and satisfactory, than that of sincerity. 

Perhaps it may be contended, that according to the 
principles on which I have reasoned, annual elections would 
not be sufficiently frequent, and that monthly elections 
ought to be regarded as still better. To this I reply, first, 
that monthly elections would be a vast additional trouble to 
voters, without any adequate benefit. Secondly, that there 
are reasons which make a year preferable for this purpose 
to any shorter period. For it is desirable that the voters, 
when they exercise their privilege of re-choosing a member, 
should fix their eyes on his general reputation for worth and 
ability, more than on his conduct with reference to any 
particular question. This general estimate is the resulting 
impression, formed by surveying and laying to heart succes- 
sively a series of his acts and speeches, assisted by the 
criticisms which each of them may provoke from the organs 
of public discussion. The seat of the member ought, there- 
fore, to be assured for a period sufficiently long to include a 
certain number of various acts and speeches, so as to serve as 
a basis for that general estimate on which the voters ought 



OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 63 

to proceed, and so as to prevent their judgment from being 
unduly absorbed by any one particular question. A year, in 
my opinion, is long enough to answer this condition per- 
fectly, and short enough to keep alive the most earnest sense 
of obligation in the bosom of the member. 

Though I regard a year as the best period, and any period 
longer than two years as seriously objectionable, yet I am far 
from denying that even triennial parliaments would be a 
prodigious improvement, in comparison with septennial, 
which are, as I have before observed, scarcely less pernicious 
than nominations for life. . 



Tho conditions, then, of an effectual Parliamentary Eeform, 
without alarming the middling classes by multiplying very 
poor voters in their present state of intelligence, are the 
following : — 

1. An aggregate of voters not less than one million, 
formed of all persons enjoying the largest income. It has 
been stated that a pecuniary qualification of £100 annual 
income would embrace one million of voters: whether this 
be the fact or not, can only be verified by actual returns : 
but I think the qualification ought to be so adjusted as to 
be sure of embracing such an aggregate. 

2. This aggregate of one million distributed into electoral 
divisions of equal or nearly equal numbers, coinciding as 
little as possible with separate class interests, or local inte- 
rests, and each voting for one member. 

3. Electors to vote bv ballot : in small bodies and at 
separate polling places, yet so that no body smaller than 
200 shall be assigned to the same ballotting-box. Each 
election to be concluded in one day. 

4. Parliaments on no consideration longer than triennial ; 
better far, if biennial : better still, if annual. 

By these provisions alone, an enormous and incalculable 
gain would be assured : but, to render them quite complete, 
they ought to be accompanied with a farther provision for 



54 ... ESSENTIALS 



'i. u 



gradually lowering the suffrage at the end of some fixed 
period, say five years, so as to introduce successively new 
voters at the end of every five years, and to render the 
suffrage at the end of twenty or twenty-five years, nearly 
co-extensive with the community. The interval would be 
more than sufficient so to educate and prepare the minds of 
the poorer voters, as to obviate all ground for alarm on the 
part of the richer. 

It is but too certain, however, that we shall not at the 
present moment acquire even our million of voters with the 
requisite accompanying precautions : so that it becomes a 
matter important to determine, since all of the first four 
provisions cannot be obtained, which of them can be least 
injuriously postponed, and which of them ought to be most 
strenuously insisted on. 

Whatever else may be postponed, let no man for a moment 
think of laying aside the Ballot. This is the vast and grand 
amendment, in the absence of which every other concession 
would be unavailing and nugatory. Without secret voting 
there cannot be public-minded voting : and without public- 
minded voting, men worthy to be legislators can neither be 
singled out nor preferred — scarcely even created. Under a 
numerous and equally distributed open suffrage, it is possible 
that the mutes and idlers in the present House might be 
replaced by active and stirring gentlemen, and that what 
Mr. Tennyson calls " the inert physical mass " of the House 
mio'ht thus be lio-htened. But the voters, thouo-h increased 
in number, would still persist in their rooted habit of voting 
from desire to oblige, from fear to offend, or from personal 
sympathy or kindness of one description or another: the 
election committee and the canvass would still be the grand 
instruments of success ; and the most promising candidate 
would be he who, steering his political course midway 
between truth and falsehood, so as to offend no one, could 
create the most favourable impression by seducing manners, 
by overflowing politeness, and by officious attentions. It 
is not from such a school that the men are to be drawn, 



OF PARLIAMENT AKY REFORM. 55 

under whose guardianship we may lay down our heads in 
peace, and to whose mandates or exactions we should 
cheerfully submit, under the conviction that they emanated 
from tried wisdom and benevolence. It is only when the 
vote, secured by secrecy, stands upon grounds quite distinct 
from the ordinary track of private affections and sympathies, 
that the elector will look out for that assemblage of public 
qualities which the magnitude of the trust really calls for. 
Then only will such qualities be sought, and then only will 
they be found. 

To gain the Ballot, it w^ould be amply worth while to 
make concessions as to the number of voters, if we were 
compelled to take our choice between the two. Though I 
could not place full confidence in an aggregate of voters 
much smaller than a million, I should greatly prefer 
500,000 voters, qualified by superiority of income, along with 
the Ballot, to 2,000,000 of voters without it. If the House 
of Commons were reduced in number to 300, an aggregate of 
500,000 voters would allow of 1660 voters for each electoral 
division. A suffrage, narrowed even to this nearly oligar- 
chical limit, but accompanied by the Ballot and by triennial 
parliaments, w^ould afford a great and salutary opening to 
superior minds and to men of public reputation, and a com- 
fortable foretaste of better things to come. 



NOTICE 



OF 



SIR WILLIAM MOLESWOETH'S EDITION 



OF THE 



WORKS OF HOBBES. 



{The 'Spectator' Newspaper, 1830.) 



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NOTICE 

T (^R OF 

SIR WILLIAM MOLESWOETH'S edition: 



1 Tk ,-. K 



Iifsd 



to 



OF THR 



WORKS OF HOBBES. 



;: tt -i^- > *^<-£^e.<ji 



The philosopliical public are much indebted to Sir William 
Moleswortli for this new edition af the works of Hobbes,* 
which he is in course of publishing, and of which two volumes, 
one English and one Latin, are now lying on our table. 

A complete body of the works of this eminent man has be- 
come almost unattainable. No full and authorised collection 
of them was ever published : and the only two partial col- 
lections that appeared — the two Latin volumes in quarto, 
printed at Amsterdam in 1668, and the English volume in 
folio, printed in London in 1750 — are each very scarce and 
extravagantly dear. There are, besides, many other tractates^ 
which exist only in their separate state, and cannot be pro- 
cured at all without much difSculty. jSTo new edition, even 
of the best and most instructive of Hobbes's treatises, has ever 
been presented to the public for the last century and a half, 
with the single exception of the English folio in 1750. This 
neglect is not very creditable to the intellectual character of 
the nation ; and the causes of it, when we trace them out 



* TJwmce Hohbes Malmeshuriensis Opera Philosojphica quce Latine 
scripsit Omnia, in unum corpus nunc primum coUecta studio et labore 
Gulielmi Molesworth. Vol. I. 

The English Worlcs of Tliomas Hohhes of Mahneshurij ; now first 
collected and edited by Sir William Molesworth, Bart. Vol. I. 



60 NOTICE OF MOLESWORTH*S EDITION 

in detail, suggest very discouraging conclusions as to the 
spirit infused into the English reading classes by our systems 
of education. 

It is indeed true, that, in regard to physical and mathe- 
matical researches, Hobbes and all his contemporaries (if we 
except only Newton) have been so much outstripped and left 
behind by succeeding inquirers, as to leave to their works no 
other interest than that of historical curiosity. There is, 
moreover, interspersed throughout the works of Hobbes, a 
good deal of the theological polemics so fashionable in his 
time — controversies respecting the interpretation of Scriptural 
passages, and attempts to show that his conclusions in morals 
and politics are sustained by the authority of the sacred 
writings, or at least are perfectly reconcileable with that 
authority. In the same age, and in a similar spirit, Algernon 
Sydney, throughout his ' Treatise on Government,' seeks to 
demonstrate at length that Democracy is the form of polity 
which the Scriptures especially sanction. Such references to 
the facts and sayings of the Bible, although they have now 
passed out of date and are no longer regarded as relevant to 
political discussions, were almost universal in the controversies 
of the seventeenth century. 

These considerations in part explain the little attention 
which has been paid to Hobbes's writings by the ages which 
have succeeded him. But let it be observed, that both the 
imperfection in the mode of physical reasoning and the 
intermixture of Scriptural polemics, is more predominant in 
the writings of Lord Bacon than in those of Hobbes ; yet the 
former nevertheless occupies a prominent place in the 
library of reading men, and is constantly cited with a kind 
of superstitious reverence as the " Master of Wisdom," to use 
an expression of the late Sir James Mackintosh, in his Pre- 
liminary Dissertation to the Encyclopaedia. There is doubt- 
less much of striking remark, of enlarged anticipation and of 
aphoristic and illustrative expression, scattered throughout 
Lord Bacon's works ; but we venture to affirm, that in all 
those qualities which go to make up the philosophical inves- 



OF THE WOBKS OF HOBBES. 61 

tigator — in the clear apprehension and searching analysis of 
intellectual difficulties, in systematic following out of deduc-^ 
tions from his premises, in perspicuous exposition of the most 
perplexed subjects, and in earnest application of his mind to 
the discovery of the truth, whether the truth when attained 
be of a welcome or of an unwelcome character — in all 
these great mental endowments, the superiority of Hobbes 
to Bacon is most decisive and unquestionable. If we look 
even for short and pithy sentences, fit to be quoted with 
effect, we shall find at least as many in the works of the 
former as in those of the latter. 

To what causes, then, are the marked neglect and the 
comparative discredit of Hobbes to be attributed ? Had the 
tendency of English education been such as to inspire the 
reading public with any sincere love of truth, or with any 
serious anxiety to verify their own conclusions on the most 
important topics connected with human society — had it not 
been unfortunately the fact, as Bishop Butler has remarked, 
that even amongst the number of persons who desire to know 
what has heen said, not one in a hundred cares to find out 
ivhat is true — we are persuaded that the moral, the meta- 
physical, and the political works of Hobbes would have been 
considered as entitled to a very distinguished place in the 
esteem of every instructed man. For, in order to peruse 
them with interest and advantage, it is by no means neces- 
sary that the reader should sit down with the submissive 
faith of a disciple, or that he should acquiesce implicitly in 
the conclusions which he finds laid out for him. No frame 
of mind can be less suitable for the perusal of Hobbes, who 
addresses himself exclusively to the rational convictions of 
every man, and who disdains, more perhaps than any other 
philosopher ancient or modern, all indirect and underhand 
methods of procuring mere passive adhesion. There is a 
fearless simplicity and straightforwardness in his manner, 
which, while it conveys his own meaning without reserve, 
operates at the same time most powerfully to awaken a train 
of original, reflection in the reader; and this fruit of his 



62 NOTICE OF MOLESWOETH'S EDITION 

writings, rare and valuable to the last degree, is admitted 
even by the least friendly critics, ^' Hobbes is a writer," 
says Dugald Stewart, "who redeems his wildest paradoxes 
by the new lights which he strikes out in defending them." 
Mr. Stewart's eulogy is qualified by a censure which is alto- 
gether undeserved ; for there is nothing in Hobbes's opinions 
which can with any justice be called wild paradox. There 
are some conclusions which are untrue, and others which are 
only partially true ; there are also some which appear to be 
paradoxical because the qualifications necessary to be annexed 
to them are not carefully stated. The most unsound of all 
his opinions is the fiction of an original covenant as the 
proximate basis of government and of its obligations ; but 
this is neither a discovery of his own nor does he stand at 
all alone in the support of it. 

The remark just cited from Dugald Stewart, less unjust, 
indeed, than the greater number of the criticisms levelled at 
Hobbes, exhibits one of the many impediments which have 
circumscribed the reputation and the influence of this 
eminent thinker amongst those who succeeded him. He 
dared to depart from received opinions ; and not only from 
those opinions which were current among the Aristotelians 
of his own day (for that would have been considered by 
Mr. Stewart as a title to admiration), but also from the 
opinions prevalent among the greater number of metaphysical 
writers of the present day, and which the Scotch school, the 
least analytical of all writers who ever meddled with philo- 
sophy, have taken under their especial protection. 

But it is not simply to his deviation from received and 
popular methods of thinking, that the subsequent discredit of 
Hobbes as a philosopher is to be attributed. He not only 
questioned customary prejudices, but he also exasperated 
powerful classes of ^men, and especially that class which is 
rarely ofiended with impunity — the priests. It was essential 
to his principles of government to prove that there could be 
only one supreme power in the state, and that the eccles- 
iastical power both must be and ought to be subordinate to 



* ' OF TKE WORKS OF HOBBES. -; 63 

the civil. Such a doctrine was well calculated to rouse the 
antipathies both of the Eoman Catholic and of the Pres- 
byterian clergy ; but we raight have expected that the clergj 
of the Church of England would have listened to it with 
patience since they could not Avell forget that their brethren, 
from the time of Henry the Eighth down to Elizabeth, had 
altered more than once both their faith and their discipline 
in obedience to the secular authority. Yet so it happened, 
that the clergy of the Church of England were no less 
irritated than the Eoman Catholics with this doctrine of the 
inherent supremacy of the civil power ; and Hobbes became 
the object of fierce hatred from ecclesiastics of all deno- 
minations. He tells us, in his own curious autobiograj)hy, 
written in Latin verse, which appears in the first volume of 
Sir William Molesworth's edition, page xciv— • 

" Leviathan clerinn at totum mihi fecerat hostem ; 

Hostis Theologum nidus uterque fuit. 
Nam dum Papalis Kegni contrecto tumorem, 

Hos, licet abscisses, laedere visus eram. 
Contra Leviathan, prime, con vicia scribunt, 

Et causa, ut tanto plus legeretm', erant." 

Whatever effect the clergy may have unintentionally pro- 
duced in promoting the circulation of the ' Leviathan ' during 
Hobbes's life, has been efiectually reversed since his death. 
Their unanimous outcry has branded him^with the stigma of 
impiety and atheism, and placed his writings on the index 
of prohibited books. Nevertheless, there is not, so far as 
we are aware, a suigle sentence in his writings which either 
discloses such sentiments in himself, or is calculated to in- 
spire them in others : the tone in which he speaks both of 
religion and of the Divine Being is uniformly reverential. 
But the denunciations of the clergy, however unfounded, 
have not been the less successful : the works of Hobbes have 
been decried as irreligious, and this is one powerful reason 
why they have -been comparatively so little studied. We 
may add, that Hobbes incurred the enmity of the clergy, not 



64 NOTICE OF MOLESWORTH'S EDITION 

simply by overthrowing their pretensions to a jurisdiction 
independent of the civil power, but also by exposing their 
glaring defects as teachers of youth and administrators of 
the Universities. The passages in which this exposure is 
performed are among the most striking and emphatic of all 
his writings. 

It might have been anticipated that the man who incurred 
so much obloquy by his protest against sacerdotal ascend- 
ency, would at least have been signally extolled by that 
civil power the importance of which he took so much pains 
to magnify. But no such countenance was shown to him. 
And it is a remarkable testimony to the single-minded 
purpose and really philanthropic spirit which pervade his 
works, that they have never found favour with the common- 
place rulers of mankind. A sovereign like Frederick the 
Second of Prussia, both animated with beneficent intentions 
towards his subjects and possessing sufficient force of per- 
sonal character to conceive and work out his designs, might 
perhaps take delight in the relation of subject and govern- 
ment as depicted by Hobbes. But the monarchical form, as 
it has commonly existed, and still continues to exist, in 
most countries of Europe, has been a government not of 
the monarch alone, but of the monarch in confederacy with 
various powerful classes and fraternities, which have aided 
him in keeping down the people, and whose interest has 
been much more at variance with the public good than the 
interest of the monarch himself. 

Now the doctrine of Hobbes, despotic as it may be, is at 
any rate an equalizing doctrine ; not sanctioning the en- 
thronement of any favoured or predominant class to inter^ 
cept for themselves the rays emanating from the governing 
power, but enforcing a like claim on the part of every subject 
to partake in this common benefit. Such recognition of a 
supreme power nakedly and simply, apart from its accom- 
panying congeries of auxiliary sinister interests, and exerting 
itself without favour or preference for the protection of the 
entire people, might have found favour at court had it 



OF THE WORKS OF HOBBES. 65 

been published under the vigorous and self-directing Queen 
Elizabeth ; but it was not likely to be of much avail to its 
author, either during the precarious tenure of the Common- 
wealth or amidst the intrigues and personal helplessness of 
Charles the Second.* In truth, it is this repudiation of all 



* The Leviathan was published in London in 1652, during the 
time of the Commonwealth, while Charles the Second was an exile 
at Paris, and while Hobbes was at Paris also. The expatriated 
Eoyalists who surrounded Charles, many of them zealous Church- 
men and scholars of the Universities, read it with the strongest 
repugnance, and denounced it as an apology for Cromwell. Hobbes 
became the object of their bitter enmity, and was even forbidden 
to appear in presence of the young king, though he had previously 
officiated as his mathematical teacher. So violent was the enmity 
of the Eoyalists, that Hobbes was actually afraid that they would 
assassinate him ; and he called to mind the fate of Dr. Dorislaus 
and Mr. Ascham, ambassadors of the English Commonwealth at the 
Hague and Madrid, who had both been murdered by Eoyalist 
assassins in those capitals. Such was his apprehension, that he, 
the loyal tutor of Charles the Second, found himself compelled to 
leave Paris immediately, and to seek protection under the Common- 
wealth of England. It was mid-winter, and the snow was on the 
ground : he had to undertake the journey at this inclement season, 
though he was then sixty-four years of age, with bad roads and 
upon a tumbledown horse. On arriving in London he reported 
himself to the Council of State ; who did not in any way molest 
him : every man in England (he says) might study or write what 
he chose, provided he would be content to live " more loci." His 
own account of these events — his estimate of the morality of the 
Eoyalists, and his idea of the character of those councillors by 
whom both Charles the First and Charles the Second were guided 
— is eminently curious : — 

" Lutetiam ad regem multis venit inde scholaris 

Expulsus patria, tristis, egenus, onus. 
Hue fuit usque meis studiis pax, multiplicata 

Dum facerent annos octo per octo meos : 
Sed meus ille liber [^. e. Leviathan] simul atque scholaribus illis 

Lectus erat, Jani dissiluere fores. 
Nam Regi accusor falso, quasi facta probarem 

Impia CromweUi, jus scelerique darem. 

F 



66 NOTICE OF MOLESWOETH'S EDITION 

idea of privileged classes — falsely calling themselves checks 
upon the supreme power, but in reality fraternising with it 
and perverting it to their own purposes — which has con- 
tributed to render the political theories of Hobbes odio^js 
in England, quite as much as his denial of constitutional 
securities to the people at large. He has paid the forfeit 
of his anti-oligarchical as much as of his anti-popular ten- 
dencies. 

Again, it is a standing reproach against his political 
writings, that they degrade the dignity of mankind : and 
this imputation may be well founded, if we compare them 
with the best and most liberal theories of government. But 
if we compare them with any political doctrines which have 
ever been generally recognised or practically acted upon in 
England, we shall find tliem the very reverse of degrading. 
The system of Hobbes is based wholly upon the willing and 
deliberate submission of the people to their existing rulers ; 
which he professes to obtain simply by appealing to their 
reason, and by demonstrating that submission is essential to 
their safety as well as to their comfort. Such a doctrine 
both supposes and favours the widest diffusion of intelligence 
among the body of the people ; and the French Economists, 
who reproduced a similar system in the last half of the 
eighteenth century, laid greater stress upon this necessary 
basis of universal instruction, than upon any other part of 
their reasonings. Contrast the state of passive and animal 
subservience to which the non-voting multitude have always 
been held bound in the theories most current among English 



Creditur ; adversis in partibus esse yidebar ; 

Perpetuo jubeor Eegis abesse domo. 
Tunc venit in mentem mihi Dorislaus, et Ascham 

Tanquam proscripto terror uhzque aderat. 
Nee de rege queri. licuit. Nam tunc adolescens 

Credidit ille, quibus credidit ante pater. 
In patriam redeo tutelae non bene certus, 

Sed nullo potui tutior esse loco : 
Frigus erat, nix alta, senex ego, ventus acerbus ; 

Vexat equus sternax et salebrosa via." — (P. xciii.) 



OF THE WORKS OF HOBBES. 67 

politicians, with the rational obedience and exercised under- 
standing supposed by Hobbes and the French Economists, 
and we are very sure that it is not the latter who will 
appear chargeable with inculcating principles debasing to the 
human race. The persons most interested in these writings, 
within our own observation, have usually been men of Eadical 
principles, who entertained the loftiest ideas both of the 
functions of government and of the possible training of 
the people — men who agreed with Hobbes in his antipathy 
to those class-interests which constitute the workino: forces 
of modern pseudo-representative monarchy — but who differed 
from him by thinking that their best chance for combining 
rational submission on the part of the governed with enlarged 
and beneficent views on the part of the governors, was to be 
found in a well-organised representative system. 

The moral and metaphysical doctrines of Hobbes have not 
escaped similar charges to those which have been advanced 
against his politics. He deduced all the passions, appetites, 
and sympathies of man from the simple feelings of pleasure 
and pain ; he derived moral obligation from the rational 
desire entertained by every man of his own conservation and 
happiness ; he judged of moral right and wrong by the test 
of utility. These doctrines are disagreeable to a large pro- 
portion of readers and writers, as giving a degrading repre- 
sentation of the human race ; and the censure which they 
have drawn upon the author has been another of the causes 
which have operated to restrict the circle of his readers. 
Woe to the philosopher who will not condescend to flatter in 
his picture of man ! Divines in the pulpit may depict the 
incorrigible wickedness of man in the darkest and most over- 
charged colours, and their sermons are extolled by every 
religious person ; but let any moralist so conduct his analysis 
of the human heart, as to bring out a result not congenial 
to the sympathies of sentimentalists, and he sets the reading 
public against him ; he is refuted beforehand, or worse than 
refuted, for he is laid aside unread. It seems to us that this 
disposition — to test metaphysical tenets by examining, not 

F 2 "^ 



68 XOTICE OF MOLESWORTITS EDITION 

whether they are true and can be substantiated by sufficient 
eTidence, but whether the admission of them as truths would 
tend to exhibit man as a better and more admirable beins: — 
has become more fashionable of late years than ever it was 
before ; at least it has been largely adopted by the Scotch 
metaphysicians, as well as by the modern French school (an 
emanation from the Scotch), in their multiplied attacks on 
the French philosophy of the eighteenth century. And 
the frequency of such attacks is to us a proof that, however 
much physical science, wliich has no adverse predispositions 
to conquer, may have been enlarged and perfected in its 
details, there is very little of reverence among us for the 
purity of philosophical truth. For the argument really in- 
volved in this mode of handling the question is, that the 
truth or falsehood of any position in morals is a matter of 
small moment ; that althoug:h it be true, it ousfht to be 
stifled and put down, if the belief of it would tend to lower 
our estimate of human nature ; and that although it be false, 
it ought to be held sacred and unquestioned, if it would lead 
us to entertain a higher notion of our species. This is not 
indeed expressly stated, perhaps it is not deliberately in- 
tended, by those who run down Hobbes as preaching tenets 
debasing to human nature; but unless it be assumed as a 
postulate, the cry against him on such a groimd can have 
neither force nor meaning. 

To admit or reject particular doctrines, not on accoimt of 
the weight of aflirmative or negative evidence, but on accoimt 
of the inferences to which they may give rise respecting the 
excellence or turpitude of human natm-e, is in effect to sub- 
vert the whole scientific edifice of moral and metaphysical 
philosophy — to degrade the science into a mere assemblage 
of conventional fictions, which it is dano:erous to scrutinise 
and criminal to overthrow. The less analytical philosophers 
have been 2:enerallv but too ready to employ this method 
of discrediting those who pushed the process of analysis 
further than themselves, unconscious that thev were at the 
same time undermining^ the fabric and destroyins: the trust- 



OF THE WORKS OF HOBBES. 69 

worthiness even of such doctrines as were common to both. 
If Hobbes had spoken of human nature in terms of the most 
stinging Cynicism, or with the sternness of an Antinomian 
divine, it would still have been unworthy of sound philo- 
sophy to employ this method of refuting him ; but, in reality, 
he has dealt in no such unmeasured censure. He speaks of 
mankind like a shrewd and penetrating observer, applying 
his remarkable powers of analysis to the phenomena which 
he saw before him. Sir James Mackintosh complains that 
Hobbes '' strikes the affections out of his map of human 
nature : " and others have alleged in like manner that he 
denies the existence of any benevolence in man, because he 
treats the benevolent as well as the other affections as being 
not inherent or original, but as derivative, and resolvable 
into the primary sentiments of pleasure and pain. It is 
common with metaphysicians of the Scotch school to repre- 
sent such a doctrine as tantamount to a denial of the exist- 
ence and efficacy of the benevolent affections : but this is 
a great injustice ; for our compound and derivative feelings 
are just as real, and just as much a part of human nature, 
as our simple and original feelings. And it would be full as 
reasonable to say that Bishop Berkeley, when he showed that 
the perception of distance by the eye was not original, but 
acquired, denied the reality of the visual power in human 
nature — as to accuse Hobbes of disputing the fact that there 
were benevolent affections, because he disputes their title to 
originality. 

Undeserved as the accusations against Hobbes are, they 
have been repeated by so many mouths, and echoed so 
loudly by the many powerful classes whose hostility he 
provoked, that he has been condemned to comparative 
oblivion and discredit with posterity : a memorable contrast 
to the incessant controversial attack of which he was the 
object throughout the greater part of his life. He followed 
the impulse of his own fearless and original intellect, without 
taking any pains to conciliate the distributors of fame ; and 
assuredly he has found no mercy at their hands. The 



70 NOTICE OF MOLESWORTH'S EDITION 

injustice of which they have been guilty towards him, 
however, may even yet be partially repaired ; at least the 
chance of such reparation wiU be increased by this new and 
convenient edition of his works. 

The long life of Hobbes, from 1588 to 1679, covered most 
remarkable changes both in politics and in philosophy. He 
was the son of a clergyman at Malmesbury ; was sent early 
to Oxford ; and was recommended on leaving Magdalen 
College to be the fellow-student and companion of the Earl 
of Devonshire, with whom he passed no less than twenty 
years, until the Earl's decease, — years, as he himself says, by 
far the happiest of his whole life, which often afforded him 
grateful dreams in his old age ; for he had ample leisure, a 
large command of books, and the opportunity of travelling 
with his patron and friend over a large portion of the Conti- 
nent. On the death of this nobleman, after a short interval 
spent at Paris, he officiated as tutor to the young Earl ; iu 
which capacity he remained seven years, partly occupied in 
travelling with his pupil. His studies during this early part 
of his life seem to have been chiefly classical and literary ; 
and it was during this period that he executed his translation 
of Thucydides, in whom he delighted more than in any 
other Grecian author, and who confirmed him in that aversion 
to democracy and civil broils to which his constitutional 
timidity naturally predisposed him. It was not before the 
age of forty that he began to addict himself to mathematical 
or philosophical studies. When about that age, according to 
Aubrey, in the library of a friend he accidentally opened a 
copy of Euclid at the 47th Proposition of the 1st Book; and on 
reading the Theorem, he was so astonished that he exclaimed 
— " By God, this is impossible ! " nor was he satisfied until 
he had studied the preceding demonstrations back to the 
commencement. From henceforward his meditations were 
largely turned towards mathematics and physics ; a dispo- 
sition which was much encouraged by the conversation of 
Father Mersenne at Paris. Father Mersenne formed the 
centre of a philosophical society in that capital ; and Hobbes 



OF THE WOKKS OF HOBBES. 71 

dwells with delight and gratitude both on his devotion to 
science, and on the disinterested zeal with which he bent 
himself to promote the studies of his friends. The physical 
and mathematical reasonings of Hobbes were embodied in 
the treatise ' De Corpore ; ' the completion of which, however, 
was long postponed and much interrupted, first by the 
treatise ' De Cive,' next by the ' Leviathan,' lastly by the 
essays ' On Human Nature ' and ' De Corpore Politico.' The 
last two, together with the ' Discourse on Liberty and Neces- 
sity,' constitute what is called the ' Tripos.' 

In 1640, he quitted England for Paris, in consequence of 
the menacing aspect of politics and the approach of the civil 
war. In 1652, the offence caused to the Eoyalists at Paris 
by the publication of the ' Leviathan ' compelled him, as we 
have already mentioned, to return to England ; which he 
never afterwards quitted. His declining years, to the time 
of his death, were passed at Chatsworth. The former Earl of 
Devonshire, with whom he had passed twenty years as a com- 
panion, had bequeathed to him an annuity, which sufficed for 
his very modest wants, and even enabled him to make over 
his small landed patrimony to his nephew. 

We have left ourselves no space for any detailed account 
of the contents of the two volumes which Sir William Moles- 
worth has already published. The treatise ' De Corpore ' is 
contained in both, the Latin in one, the English in the other : 
to the first is prefixed his Latin biography, together with the 
* Vitse Hobbianse Auctarium,' which had already appeared in 
the previous folio edition. We will only remark, that the 
first two sections of the treatise ' De Corpore,' entitled ' Com- 
putatio, sive Logica,' and 'Philosophia Prima,' appear to us 
among the most instructive and valuable of his works ; exhi- 
biting a rare combination of analytical sagacity with condensed 
and perspicuous expression, and assisting most powerfully to 
unravel those extreme abstractions, without the compre- 
hension of which no man can successfully cope with the 
difficulties of mental philosophy. 

We trust it will enter into the scheme of Sir William 



72 NOTICE OF THE WORKS OF HOBBES. 

Molesworth to annex to his edition of this distinguished man 
a critical biography and a coherent exposition of the sequence 
and modifications of his philosophical tenets. The great lines 
which connect them with each other are indeed sufficiently 
marked out by Hobbes — De Corpore, De Homine, De Give : 
but much might be done by an able biographer in furnishing 
the requisite illustrations and elucidations ; and a more 
stirring period, either in politics or in philosophy, is scarcely 
to be found throughout the range of history. It seems 
highly probable, that if the English political troubles had 
not broken out in 1640, the whole intellectual career of 
Hobbes would have been greatly altered : he would have 
been much more eminent as a mathematician and physical 
philosopher, and much less known as a writer on politics. 
Both the treatise ' De Give ' and the ' Leviathan ' were the 
direct offspring of the English civil war ; and he himself tells 
us that they broke very unseasonably the continuity of his 
mathematical and physical studies. 



GRECIAN LEGENDS AiND EARLY HISTORY. 



(W€d7niitster Eeview, 1843,) 



GRECIAN LEGENDS AND EARLY HISTORY. 



The short volume* which we here introduce to the notice of 
our readers derives its principal value from the great name 
of its author — a name which no man who takes interest in 
historical studies can pronounce without veneration and 
gratitude. If we regard Niebuhr with reference to erudition 
alone — copious, accurate, and available erudition — he oc- 
cupies a place in the foremost rank, and few indeed are the 
authors entitled to a station along with him. But when 
we consider, besides, his wonderful ingenuity in combining 
scattered facts, his piercing eye for the detection of latent 
analogies, and for the separation of leading points of evidence 
from that crowd of accessories under which they often lie 
concealed, his power of recomposing the ancient world by 
just deduction from small fragments of history, like the 
inferences of Cuvier from the bones of fossil animals — when 
we take these rare mental attributes, operating upon the 
vast mass of materials which his erudition supplied to them, 
he seems to us to stand alone, even among so many distin- 
guished countrymen and contemporaries. Moreover, the 
moral nature of Niebuhr was distinguished not only by a 
fearless love of truth, but by a quality yet more remarkable 
among literary men — by a hearty sympathy with the mass 
of the people — a disposition not simply to compassionate 
them as sentients, which is sufficiently common, but to ap- 



* Griechische Heroen Geschichten, Von B. G. Niebuhr an seinen 
Sohn erzahlt. Hamburg, 1842. Grecian Heroic Stories ; related 
by B. G. Niebuhr to his Son. 



76 GRECIAN LEGENDS 

predate them candidly as agents, — to treat their sentiments 
and motives with respect, and even their mistakes with 
charitable censure. We are not disposed to maintain that 
Niebuhr is always right in his judgments ; far from it : but 
even the errors of so original a mind are constantly sug- 
gestive ; and we feel assured, that to every person who has 
studied his writings with attention, the evidences respecting 
the ancient world of Greece, as well as of Rome, will appear 
in a point of view totally different to that in which they had 
presented themselves before. 

Like our own lamented Dr. Arnold, a worthy second both 
in historiographic intellect and in moral candour, Niebuhr 
was snatched from the world in the full maturity of his 
career, before he had had time to bring his great work to 
completion. To these two capital losses we have to add that 
of K. 0. Miiller, best known to the English world by his 
history of the Dorians — an author of great performance and 
still greater promise, cut off in the prime of life, a victim to 
his zeal for the prosecution of personal researches in Greece. 
Fatally have the arrows of Apollo told, during tlie last few 
years, among the chiefs of the classical camp ! 

The volume before us contains portions of the early heroic 
legends of Greece, prepared by Niebuhr himself for the 
special purpose of being recounted to his son Marcus, then a 
very young boy. From a short preface by the son, who has 
now published them, we learn the vivid and ineffaceable 
impression which they made upon his youthful feelings ; 
enforced as the narratives were by the earnest interest both 
of the father and of the philologer, and illustrated by those 
references to the visible remains of antiquity which a resi- 
dence in Eome abundantly furnished. Marcus Niebuhr 
dwells emphatically on the delight which he recollects to 
have felt when he discovered, or thought that he discovered, 
the cave of Cacus on the Aventine Mount ; and tlie endless 
comparisons, suggested by his father's stories about Her- 
cules, with the bas-reliefs and sarcophagi in the Vatican. 

Niebuhr has prepared, for the object liere described, three 



AND EAELY HTSTOKY. 77 

separate narratives :—l. The expedition of the Argonauts. — 
2. The various legends of Hercules. — 3. The Heracleids and 
Orestes : — but the narratives do, in point of fact, run over a 
much wider field of Grecian heroology, comprising more or 
less reference to the hunting of the Calydonian boar, the 
two sieges of Thebes, and the second siege of Troy by 
Agamemnon, as well as the first by Hercules. The recital 
is simple, neat, and we may even say, touching ; displaying 
great address in presenting the stories so as to be clearly 
apprehended by a very young boy, and forming a remarkable 
contrast to the difficulty which we often lament to find in 
the style of his elaborate work. More interesting narratives, 
for boy as well as man, no book of fairy tales can supply : 
nor do we know where a father or a preceptor can find them 
so fitly arrayed as in this affectionate memento of the 
illustrious historian of Rome. 

One farther merit they have, which we may call peculiarly 
Niebuhrian. They are given in their literal integrity as 
legends, instead of being squeezed and tortured into au- 
thentic history ; they preserve all the fanciful sequences, 
the supernatural meddling, and the predominance of indi- 
vidual personality, which characterise the former, and are 
no way tamed down into the measured march, the constant 
laws of nature, and the political aim and agency, which 
prevail throughout the latter. We call this distinction 
between legend and history Niebuhrian, because we believe 
that the first vohmie of the history of Rome originally 
enforced it with fulness and efficiency on the literary world, 
though it has now been adopted by various eminent names, 
and has become at least extensively understood, though not 
universally admitted. Dr. Arnold has carried it thoroughly 
out in the early part of his Roman history, and Mr. 
Macaulay, in the preface to his beautiful ' Lays of Ancient 
Rome,' has illustrated it by many striking observations, to 
which we rejoice to think that his book will give extensive 
currency. 

Dr. ThirhvaU's ' History of Greece,' in whicli the primitive 



78 GEECIAN LEGENDS 

ages are most correctly appreciated, and the translation of 
K. 0. Miiller's ' History of the Dorians/ ought to have 
familiarised the English reader with the distinction between 
legend and history in regard to Greece, no less than in 
regard to Rome. But we suspect that the result produced 
in this direction has hardly been commensurate with the 
merit of these two excellent works. The idea of a basis of 
authentic matter of fact, pervading the Grecian heroology, 
and only transformed into the shape in which we read it by 
amplification, or poetical ornament, or mistake, — is so deeply 
rooted in the English mind, that reasonings on the opposite 
side require to be often repeated before they work con- 
viction. Certain it is that every youth who goes through a 
classical education repeats the date of the sieges of Troy 
and Thebes with as much confidence in the reality of those 
events as in that of the siege of Syracuse by Nicias. More- 
over, the recent work on Grecian chronology by Mr. Fynes 
Clinton, — so full both of condensed learning and of valuable 
reasoning in respect to the historical ages, — retains to a 
great degree what we think ancient errors in regard to the 
heroic ages ; it carries up the series of real personages to a 
period 800 years earlier than the first Olympiad, and it 
recites even Hercules, the hero of these tales of Niebuhr, 
and Phoroneus, the Argeian Adam, as if they were certified 
flesh and blood, the genuine predecessors of those who lived 
and moved during the Peloponnesian war ; while the partial 
concessions which the author makes to the opposite opinion 
serve only to render his remaining positions inconsistent as 
well as untenable. Considering the well-earned authority 
of Mr. Clinton's Chronology, we think it not altogether 
superfluous to employ a few pages in illustrating the true cha- 
racter of early Grecian history ; and the Heroen Geschichten 
of Niebuhr forms a suitable text to awaken such reflections. 

Obvious as the remark seems, it still requires to be re- 
peated, we are sorry to say, in regard to Grecian history — 
that the onus probandi as to every alleged matter of fact 
rests upon the historian. 



AND EARLY HISTORY. 79 

Now, when any statement is brouglit before the public as 
alleged matter of fact, there is a disposition almost universal 
to believe, that, though the whole be not deserving of credit, 
a part of it at least must be true — that, though allowance is 
to be made, more or less as the case may be, for exaggera- 
tion or perversion, there must be some foundation of reality 
upon which the narrative has been raised. The maxim, 
"Fortiter calumniare, semper aliquid restat," is founded 
upon a just estimate of human impressibility : and the most 
mendacious and discredited newspaper exercises on the long 
run more influence over men's belief than they are at all 
willino: to admit. 

Taking this as a mere general presumption, we allow that 
it is more frequently correct than erroneous — at least with 
reference to contemporary matters, and in an age of copious 
historical investigation and criticism like the present. But 
though, under such limitations, we concede the reasonable- 
ness of the general presumption, we think that it is even 
now carried much farther than it ought to be. Distributing 
all the accredited narratives w^hich float in society into three 
classes — accurate matter of fact, exaggerated matter of fact, 
and entire, though plausible, fiction — the last class will be 
found to embrace a very considerable proportion of the 
whole. They are tales which grow out of, and are accom- 
modated to, the prevalent emotions of the public among 
whom they circulate : they exemplify and illustrate the 
partialities or antipathies, the hopes or fears, the religious or 
political sentiments of a given audience. There is no other 
evidence to certify them, indeed, except their plausibility : 
but that title is amply sufficient; the man who recounts 
what seems to fill up gaps or solve pre-existing diJBficulties 
in the minds of his hearers, runs little risk of being called 
upon to name an auctor secundus for his story. The love of 
new plausibility is as common as the love of genuine and 
ascertained truth is rare ; questions of positive evidence 
are irksome to almost every one : and the historian, who 
desires general circulation, casts all such discussions into an 



80 GEECIAN LEGENDS 

appendix, of which he knows that the leaves will remain 
uncut. What is worse still — when one of these verisimilia 
has once been comfortably domiciled in a man's mind, if you 
proceed to apply to it' the test of positive evidence, in all 
probability he will refuse to listen to you ; but should you 
unhappily succeed in showing, that the story includes some 
chronological or geographical inconsistencies which no sub- 
tlety can evade, be assured that he will look upon you with 
emotions not verv different from those with which he con- 
templates the dentist — if he be not ready " to bite you 
outright " (to use the homely phrase of Socrates in Plato's 
Theaetetus, c. 22), he will at least alter his course the next 
time he sees vou afar off in the street. 

To illustrate what we have just laid down — the genesis of 
this specious and plausible fiction, so radically distinct from 
exaggerated or misreported reality — we will cite an example 
having reference to a celebrated genius, not very long de- 
ceased. In the works of Lord Byron, published by Mr. 
Moore (vol. xi, p. 72), we find the ' Manfred ' of the great 
English poet criticised by one greater than himself — by a 
person no less than Goethe. A. portion of that criticism runs 
as follows : 

'* We find thus, in this tragedy, the quintessence of the most 
astonishing talent horn to be its own tormentor. The character of 
Lord Byron's life and poetry hardly permits a just and equitable 
appreciation. He has often enough confessed what it is that tor- 
ments him. There are, proj)erly speaking, two females whose 

phantoms for ever haunt him, and wMcli [we cite the translation as 
we find it] in this piece also, perform principal parts — one under 
the name of Astarte, — the other without form or presence, and 
merely a voice. Of the horrid occurrence which took place with 
the former, the following is related : — When a hold and enterprising 
young man, Tie icon the affections of a Florentine lady. Her husband 
discovered the amour, and murdered his icife ; hut the murderer was 
the same night found dead in tlie street, and there was no one on whom 
suspicion could he attached. Lord Byron removed from Florence, and 
these spirits haunted him all his life after. This romantic incident 
is rendered highly probable by innumerable allusions to it in his 
poems." 



AND EARLY HISTORY. 81 

Such is Goethe's criticism ; now come the remarks of 
Mr. Moore, the biographer and personal friend of Lord 
Byron. 

" The grave confidence with which the venerable critic [Goethe] 
traces the fancies of his brother poet to real persons and events, 
making no difficulty even of a double murder at Florence to fur- 
nish grounds for his theory, affords an amusing instance of the 
disposition so prevalent throughout Europe to picture Byron as a 
man of marvels and mysteries, as well in his life as in his poetry. 
To these exaggerated, or wholly false, notions of him, the numerous 
fictions palmed upon the loorld of his romantic tours and loonderfid 
adventures in places he never saiv, and with persons that never existed, 
have no doubt considerably contributed ; and the consequence is, 
so utterly out of truth and nature are the representations of his life 
and character Jo7ig current on the Continent, that it may be ques- 
tioned whether the real 'flesh and blood' hero of these pages — the 
social, practical-minded, and, with all his faults and eccentricities, 
English Lord Byron — may not, to the over-exalted imaginations of 
most of his foreign admirers, appear but an ordinary, unromantic, 
and prosaic personage.*' 

Here we have specimens of genuine legend or mythus, such 
as Hekataeus, Herodotus, and Thucydides, found so largely in 
possession of the Grecian mind, and such as even now, in the 
age of Blue Books and Statistical Societies, holds divided 
empire with reality — pullulating anew and in unexpected 
corners, as fast as the old plants are stifled by the legitimate 
seeds of history. It is not often that we have the oppor- 
tunity of confronting thus nakedly tlie mythographer with 
the autoptic historian : and of demonstrating by so clear 
an example, that even where the mythical subject is indis- 
putably real, the mythical predicates bear no resemblance 
to reality, but have their root in something generically 
different from actual matters of fact. Even with res^ard 
to places and persons in these narratives, the places were 
such as Byron had never seen, the persons such as bad 
never exi^^ted. 

Our readers, however, will not require to be told that the 
mytluis differs essentially from accnrate and well-ascertained 

G 



82 GKECIAN LEGENDS 

history. What we wish to enforce upon them is, that it 
differs not less essentially from inaccurate and ill-ascertained 
history ; and the case just cited brings out the distinction 
forcibly. The story which Goethe relates of the intrigue 
and double murder at Florence, is not a mis-reported fact : 
it is a pure and absolute fiction. It is not a story of which 
one part is true and another part false, nor in which you can 
hope, by removing ever so much of superficial exaggeration, 
to reach at last a subsoil of reality. All is alike untrue, the 
basis as well as the details. In the mind of the original in- 
ventor, the legend derived its birth, not from any erroneous 
description which had reached his ears respecting adven- 
tures of the real Lord Byron, but from the profound and 
vehement impression which Lord Byron's poetry had made 
both upon him and upon all others around him. The poet 
appeared to be breathing out his own soul and sufferings in 
the character of his heroes — we ought rather to say of his 
hero, TToWcov ovofidrcov f^opcjyrj fila — he seemed like one struck 
down, as well as inspired, by some strange visitation of destiny. 
In what manner, and from what cause, had the Eumenides 
been induced thus to single him out as their victim ? A 
large circle of deeply-moved readers, and amongfst them the 
greatest of all German authors, cannot rest until this problem 
be solved : either a fact must be discovered, or a fiction in- 
vented, for the solution. The minds of all being perplexed 
by the same mystery and athirst for the same explanation, 
nothing is wanted except a prima vox: some one, more 
forward or more felicitous than the rest, imagines and pro- 
claims the tragical narrative of the Florentine married 
couple. So happily does the story fit in, that the inventor 
seems only to have given clear utterance to that which others 
were dimly shadowing out in their minds: the lacerated 
feelings of the poet are no longer an enigma ; the die which 
has stamped upon his verses their peculiar impress, has been 
discovered and exhibited to view. If, indeed, we ask what 
is the authority for the tale — to speak in the Homeric lan- 
guage, it has been suggested by some God, or by the airy- 



AND EARLY HISTORY. 83 

tongued Ossa, the bearer of encouragement and intelligence 
from Omniloquent Zeus;* to express the same idea in 



* Homer, Odyss. i. 280 : Mentor advises Telemachus (also ii. 
216)— 

^'Ep)(€o TrevarofJLO/os Trarpos 8^ olxofxivoLO' 
*Hv Tts TOL €i7njcrL jSpoTloVy rj Oora-av aKOvoirjs 
'Ek Ato5, ^ T€ /xaAtcrra cjiepa K\eo<s av0pu)7roL(ru 

So in the Iliad, ii. 95, when the heralds by Agamemnon's 
direction have proclaimed a public meeting, the Grecian soldiers 
crowd like bees to the agora : 

fis T(x)v €6v€a TToXXa ve<hv oltto koI KXixriduiv 
Htoi/os TTpOTrdpoiOe fiaOeiyj'^ k(TTi)(6oiVTO 
lAaSoi/ €ts dyoprjv ^era Si acjao-iv "Ooraa SeSrjei 
OTpvvova ievai, Atos ayycXo?. 

''Oo-cra ayycXos appears also in Odyss. xxiv. 413. 

And Iliad, viii. 251 — Omniloquent Zeus — 

''Ev^a 7ravofJi(jiaL(o Zrjvl pi^ccTKOv 'A^^atot. 

Buttman (Lexilogus, sect. 9 ; compare also the Venetian Scholia 
ad Iliad, i. 105) is certainly right in distinguishing "Oo-o-a in the 
Iliad and Odyssey, from 4>7]fjir] or sometimes kXtjScov in the Homeric 
sense, which means a dictum, accidentally significant to the hearer 
of something which the speaker did not intend or think of, and 
therefore ominous. (Odyss. xviii. 117, xx. 100.) But we cannot 
admit that he is right in distinguishing "Oo-o-a from 6eov 6/x<^7) (II. 
XX. 129 ; Odyss. iii. 215), nor can we agree with him in thinking 
that ""Oo-o-a means " the general talk of men, the clamour of a 
multitude, as distinguished from the statement of some known 
individual." ^Oo-o-a in Homer is the voice proceeding from Zeus, 
heard only by some special person or persons for whom it is 
destined : the verb 6Wo/xat seems to denote the impression made 
upon the internal man by this divine agent, without any present or 
material cause, wherein sight is not clearly distinguished from 
hearing (Odyss. i. 115 ; xx. 81): a parallel to 

" I hear a voice thou canst not hear, 
That says I must not stay : 
I sec a form thou canst not see, 
That beckons me away." 

a 2 



84 GRECIAN LEGENDS 

homely and infantine English, it lias been whispered by a 
little bird. But we may be pretty well assured that few of 
the audience will raise questions about authority ; the story 



From hence the word ocro-o/xat passes to signify any vague, in- 
distinct presentiment. 

The ^7;/x77 of Hesiod (0pp. et D. 761) is different, and really 
bears the meaning which Buttman assigns to the Homeric "Oacra — 

^jjijirj 8' ovTL^ Tva^irav aTroXXvrai rjvr tva ttoXXol 
AaoL cf)rjiJiit,ov(Ti' 6e6s vv Tts ccrrl koi avrrj. 

Here the heavenly origin is struck off : the vox poi:)uli is exalted 
into the vox Dei. ^schines, in a very curious j)assage too long to 
be here cited, rather reverts to the old idea of <^rjixri (cent. Timarch. 
c. 27). 

And in the account which Herodotus gives of the battle of 
Mycale, we have the Homeric "Ocrcra, the messenger of Zeus, 
decidedly reproduced. The battle of Mycale on the coast of Asia 
Minor, and that of Platpea in Bceotia, were fought on the same 
day : the former in the afternoon — the latter in the morning. 
Previous to the onset at Mycale, the Greeks were in much appre- 
hension respecting their countrymen in Bceotia, who were exj)osed 
to the very superior force under Mardonius. But just as the 
Mycalean Greeks were preparing to attack, " there flew into the 
whole camp a voice, and a herakVs staff appeared lying on the 
beach : and the voice went through them to this effect, that the 
Greeks in Boeotia were then conquering the army of Mardonius. 
Many indeed are the evidences by which divine phenomena 
manifest themselves ; since on this occasion, the defeats of Mycale 
and Plat^a happening on the same day, the voice came over to the 
Greeks in Asia so as to inspire new courage into their army." — 
Herod, ix. 100 : Igvo-l hi crcfn cfyr]}xrj re icreTrraro is to crrparoTreSov 
TTCLV — (prj/xT} TolcTL F^XXyjcnv icraTrLKero. H]/ Se appcuSLr] cr<pL irpiv 
nqv ^YifXTjv icraTTLKecrOaL — ws fxivToi y KXi-jSuay avrrj (j<^i laiTraro — 
ix. 101. 

The ^rjfxri or kXyjSojv of Herodotus, is a voice sent by the Gods 
across the ^geian sea, to make known to the Asiatic Greeks the 
victory then just accomplished by their brethren in Bceotia. The 
difference between Herodotus and Homer is chiefly this : that 
Homer gives Ossa directly, simply, and familiarly, as the messenger 
of Zeus ; whereas Herodotus introduces the Gods as a pious in- 



AND EARLY HISTORY, 85 

drops into its place like the key-stone of an arch, and ex- 
actly 'fills the painful vacancy in their minds ; it seems to 
carry with it the same sort of evidence as the key which 
imparts meaning to a manuscript in cypher, and they are 
too well pleased wdtji the acquisition to be very nice as to 
the title. Nay, we may go further and say, that the man 
who demonstrates its falsehood will be the most unw^elcome 
of all instructors ; so that we trust, for the comfort of 
Goethe's last years, that he w^as spared the pain of seeing 
his interesting mythus about Lord Byron contemptuously 
blotted out by Mr. Moore. 

It ai-gues no great discernment in Mr. Moore's criticism, 
that he passes with disdain from these German legends to 
some majestic sentences extracted from Lord Jeffrey and the 
' Edinburgh Eeview/ as the more w^orthy encomiasts of Byron. 
Now, the legends themselves shall be rational or absurd as 
you will ; but the glory of the poet consists in his having 
planted in so many intellectual minds, Goethe included, the 
oestrus for creating and the appetite for believing them. 
In our view% this is a more unequivocal proof of his potent 
influence over the emotions, and a far higher compliment to 
his genius, than the most splendid article ever turned out in 
the blue and vellow clothin 



O' 



Father Sfalebranche, in discussing the theory of morals, 
has observed, that our passions all justify themselves ; that 
is, they suggest to us reasons for justifying them. He might 
with equal justice have remarked, and it is the point wdiicli 
we have sought to illustrate by the preceding remarks on 
the Byronian legends, that all our strong emotions, when 
shared in common by a circle of individuals or a community, 

ference, with some degree of circumlocution, as if their intervention 
required proof. 

In analysing the sources of fabulous narrative, it is quite 
essential to take account of these ideas of superhuman communi- 
cations and authority, prevalent in the ancient world, and super- 
seding so constantly the necessity for positive testimony as a 
condition of belief. 



86 GRECIAN LEGENDS 

will not only sanctify fallacious reasonings, but also call into 
being, and stamp with credibility, abundance of narratives 
purely jSctitious. Whether the feeling be religious, or poli- 
tical, or aesthetic — love, hatred, terror, gratitude, or admi- 
ration — it will find or break a way to expand and particularise 
itself in appropriate anecdotes ; it serves at once both as 
demand and supply ; it both emboldens the • speaker to 
invent, and disposes the hearers to believe him without any 
further warrant. Such anecdotes are fictions from begin- 
ning to end, but they are specious and impressive fictions ; 
they boast no acknowledged parentage, but they are the 
adopted children of the whole community ; they are em- 
braced with an intensity of conviction quite equivalent to 
the best authenticated facts. And let it be alwavs recol- 
lected — we once more repeat — that they are radically distinct 
from half-truths or mis-reported matters of fact ; for upon 
this distinction will depend the difi*erent mode which we 
shall presently propose of dealing with them in reference to 
Grecian history. 

In no point is the superiority of modern times over ancient 
so remarkable — we may add the superiority of the present 
time over all preceding — as in the multiplication and im- 
provement of exact means of information as to matters of 
fact, physical as well as social. In former days the Floren- 
tine intrigue, and the other stories noticed by Mr. Moore, 
would have obtained undisputed currency as authentic mate- 
rials for the life of Lord Byron ; then would have succeeded 
rationalizing historians, who, treating the stories as true at 
the bottom, would have proceeded to discriminate the basis 
of truth from the accessories of fiction. One man would 
have disbelieved the supposed murder of the wife, another 
that of the husband ; a third would have said that, the 
intrigue having been discovered, the husband and wife had 
both retired into convents, the one under feelings of deep 
distress, the other in bitter repentance, and that, the fleshly 
lusts having been thus killed, it was hence erroneously 
stated that the husband and wife had themselves been killed. 



AND EARLY HISTORY. 87 

If the reader be not familiar with the Greek Scholiasts, we 
are compelled to assure him that the last explanation would 
have found much favour in their eyes, inasmuch as it saves 
the necessity of giving the direct lie to any one, or of saying 
that any portion of the narrative is absolutely unfounded. 
The misfortune is, that though the story would thus be 
divested of all its salient features and softened down into 
something very sober and colourless, perhaps even edifying, 
— yet it would not be one whit nearer to actual matter 
of fact. Something very like what we have been describing, 
however, would infallibly have taken place, had we not been 
protected by a well-informed biographer, and by the copious 
memoranda of a positive age. 

Taking the age as it now stands, and with reference to 
contemporary matters, we have already said that we consider 
the judgment of the public, which presumes some foun- 
dation in fact for every current statement, to be in the 
majority of cases a just one. Fiction, though still powerful 
and active, is in a minority — on the whole, in a declining 
minority. In her old time-honoured castles, she does indeed 
preserve unshaken authority ; but her new conquests, if not 
difficult to be made, are at least difficult to be maintained. 

So much with reference to the present age. But when we 
transport ourselves back to ancient times — to the early dawn 
of Grecian history — the above presumption becomes directly 
and violently reversed. 

Here we find mythus omnipotent ; positive knowledge and 
recorded matter of fact scarcely exist, even in the dreams 
of the wisest individuals. With what consistency can you 
require that a community which either does not command 
the means, or has not learned the necessity, of registering 
the phenomena of its present, should possess any hnowledge 
of the phenomena of its past ? We say advisedly hnowledge, 
traceable to some competent and trustworthy source, and 
deducible by some reasonable chain of collated evidence. 
The mental processes, upon which the verification of positive 
matter of fact depends, are of slow growth and painful acqui- 



88 , GEECIAX LEGENDS 

sition : men only apply them to the past after having pre- 
viously applied them to the present ; and at the dawn of 
Grecian history, say at the commencement of the Olympiads 
in 776 B.C., they were as much untrodden ground as the 
propositions of geometry. 

Knowledge with respect to the past, we have said, a com- 
munity so circumstanced will neither possess nor desire; but 
feelings with respect to the past they doubtless will possess 
— feelinos both fervent and uuanimous. And these feelins^s 
will provide abundant substitutes for knowledge ; they will 
pour themselves out in legends or mytlii requiring no 
evidence beyond their own intrinsic beauty and plausibility ; 
so that the mythopceic [)ropensity thus exhibits a past time 
of its own, suitably coloured and peopled, and thoroughly 
satisfactory to the popular religious and patriotic faith, 
though the actual past with its commonplace realities be 
alto2:ether buried and for2:otten. Such tales are embraced 
and welcomed from their entire harmony with all the general 
sentiments and belief: if there be no positive evidence to 
sustain them, there is none to contradict them ; they work 
upon the convictions of an unrecordirg age with the irresist- 
ible force of autl::enticated truth. Add to this the presence of 
individual bards or poets, endov.ed with a genius adequate to 
the occasion, and nothins: more is wantiuir to brins; into exist- 
ence a body of historical mythus or mythical history, some- 
thins; which is not degenerated matter of fact, but legitimate 
and genuine fiction, though accepted and believed as history. 

The personages who alone stand conspicuous in this sup- 
posed mythical past, are such as we should expect from the 
feelino's out of which the tales otow. Thev are the Gods 
and Heroes reverenced among the present community, ac- 
knowledged in their prayers, invoked as their protectors in 
the hour of danger, and presiding in spirit at their, festi- 
vals and scenes of public enjoyment.* The people in the 



^ Hesiod represents the men who carried on the sieges of 
Troy and Thebes as belonging to a special race, totally different 



AND EAKLY HISTORY. 89 

« 

ancient epic are introduced merely as a nameless crowd to 
fill the scene ; they serve as instruments to execute the 
orders, or as subject-matter to bring out the potent per- 
sonality, of their divine or heroic commanders. The ^olic 
or Ionic colonists, to whom the Iliad was addressed, neither 
saw nor wished to see, in the past, men of their own stature 
and proportions : if you could have produced to them a 
history of their own real fathers, framed with all the care of 
Thucydides, distributed according to summers and winters, 
and embodying nothing but strictly human agency and 
positive motives, they would have turned from it with indif- 
ference, even though it had been animated by all that 
graphic power with which Thucydides has described the last 
combat of the Athenian fleet in the harbour of Syracuse. 
Such narratives presuppose a certain thirst of rational curi- 
osity — a sentiment which had not yet been aroused among 
the hearers of the ancient epic. To captivate their emotioDs 
as well as to win their belief, vou must address to them 
legends, of which the foundation is already laid in their 
religious feelings ; legends exhibiting both the agents and 
the mode of agency, superhuman ; legends cast back into an 
undefined past, the interval between which and the present 
no one then cares to fathom, when the heroes whose conse- 
crated groves they now see before them were treading the 
same earth, and aided by the same Gods as themselves. To 
treat Grecian history without Grecian religion, is to render 
it essentially acephalous : when we follow the stream upwards 
until it becomes thoroughly scanty and unrefreshing, we find 
that it loses itself amidst a sea of fiction, even then both 



from his own degenerate contemporaries, and extinct before his 
time. 

'A^Spoji/ rjp(x)(x)V 6eiov yevos, ol KokiovTai 

'HfMOeoi TTporiprj yeverj /car aireipova yolav — 0pp. et D. 146-156. 

The words rjiJuOewv yevos avSpojv — Homer, Iliad xii. 23, express 
the same idea; the Homeric phrase — otot vvv jSporot elo-c — signi- 
ficant of present degeneracy, is of familiar occurrence. 



90 GKECIAN LEGENDS 

abundant and relishing to the taste. First, we have pure 
fiction passing under the name and colours of past reality : 
next, we have reality clouded and perverted by fiction: 
lastly, we have reality by itself — not indeed unmingled with 
fiction, but under such forms that we can tolerably well 
discriminate the one from the other. 

Our first glimpse of the Grecian world begins with the Iliad 
and Odyssey, Of these glorious and imperishable productions 
we know scarcely anything, except such information as the 
poems themselves furnish : nor shall we now discuss the 
various hypotheses which have been proposed respecting 
their authorship and promulgation. It is certain that they 
suppose a pre-existing epical literature, now lost — songs or 
poems of a similar character, but of what merit we cannot 
judge. Both the Ante-Homeric and the Post-Homeric epical 
compositions have been withheld from us by the envious 
hand of fate : of the latter we have the names and a few 
scanty fragments — the Cypria, the Lesser Iliad, the De- 
struction of Troy, the -^thiopis, the Return of the Grecian 
Heroes, the Thebais, the Epigoni, the Titanomachia, the 
Capture of (Echalia, the Telegonia, the CEdipodia, the Hera- 
cleia, the Minyas, &c. 

Of these compositions several passed under the venerated 
name of Homer, and all appear to have been put together, 
more or less successfully, with a view to a certain poetical 
integrity, like the Iliad and the Odyssey. But there w^as 
also another class of poems, more nakedly narrative and 
genealogical, without any pretensions to poetical unity — 
pedigrees given in verse of the divine and heroic person- 
ages belonging to the various Grecian communities, con- 
necting the contemporaries of the poet with those Gods in 
whom their retrospective vision always terminated. The 
Catalogue of Women, and the Great Eoeae, seem to have 
been two long and desultory poems, ascribed to Hesiod, 
the author of the Theogonia and the Shield of Hercules, 
and containing a variety of heroic genealogies : the ^gi- 
mius and the marriage of Ceyx are alluded to also as 



AND EAELY HISTOEY. 91 

productions of Hesiod, but it is difficult to identify the 
many scattered allusions made by later Greek authors to the 
name of that poet. The Naupaktian verses, and the poems 
of Eumelus, Cinaethon, and Asius, bore the same genea- 
logising character : none of them have been preserved to 
modern times. 

Of the lyric, iambic, and elegiac poetry, once so abundant 
and so celebrated, a considerable portion was devoted to 
events of the time, and would thus have carried with it a 
certain historical evidence, if it had been preserved. Archi- 
lochus, Alcman, Tyrtaeus, Alc^us, Sappho, all handled con- 
temporary subjects, commemorating their affections as well 
as their antipathies, and blending, like Pindar, the persons 
and circumstances of the moment with suitable comparisons 
out of the ancient legends. The remains of Solon and 
Theognis seem like moral discourses in verse, conceived in a 
spirit not much exalted above the level of ordinary prose : 
in fact, the elaborate prose of Isocrates probably cost more 
care in the preparation than the elegiac or iambic verse of 
the Gnomic poets. 

The various poets here alluded to, and others of similar 
genius and character, filled up the interval of two centuries 
and a half between the first authenticated chronological epoch 
(B.C. 776), and the first commencement of prose writing. So 
much new imagination having thus been applied to the 
ancient legends, the number of them became considerably 
multiplied, and the confusion and divergence among them 
proportionally augmented. And in estimating this number 
and confusion — a fact which bore materially upon the con- 
tinuance of the ancient faith, we are not to forget that the 
legends which passed through the hands of the poets formed 
but a small proportion of the total number of analogous 
legends current in Greece. In each of the many autonomous 
communities into which that country was divided, a distinct 
and peculiar crop of local mythus was be found. There 
were presiding Heroes, like Patron Saints, not merely for 
each state apart from the rest, but for each separate sub- 



92 , GRECIAN LEGENDS 

division of the same state distinct from the other sub- 
divisions : every Deimis in Attica, — and every Gens or 
extended family union, — every fraternity of men allied for a 
common purpose and bearing a common name, — recognised 
some divine or semi-divine Eponymus, who was supposed to 
have originally bestowed the name, and to extend a watchful 
protection . towards his special flock. All the numerous 
temples, consecrated groves, and festivals, were rich in ex- 
planatory mythi : the exegetes had always a suitable tale at 
hand to show you why it was peculiarly proper to carry a 
branch of laurel or to offer a honeyed cake : some adventure 
of the God or the Hero was perpetually forthcoming to 
justify every detail of the practised ritual. The periegesis 
of Pausanias is especially valuable, as it gives us some insight 
into these more obscure mvthi, accredited and reverenced 
each in its own peculiar corner, but prevented from circu- 
lating through the general Grecian world by the want of 
some " sacred poet " to give it currency : if the many similar 
works, prepared at earlier periods by others, had been pre- 
served to us, we should have acquired a fuller conception of 
the exuberance of the aggregate stock. 

Now, these legends, though infinitely diversified in their 
details, were all cast in moulds to a great degree analogous ; 
all had their root in the public feeling and were consecrated 
by the public faith ; they cleared up, or seemed to clear up, 
those incogniia respecting which real curiosity was enter- 
tained ; and they composed, v. hen taken together, the poli- 
tical and religious antiquities of the people — a pseudo- 
historical past suited -to the non-historical mind. They were 
the spontaneous, indigenous growth of the earliest Grecian 
thought and feeling, antecedent to all record of actual fact 
or consecutive exercise of reason. This last was a gradual 
progress, emanating from the superior minds of the com- 
munity : a new and artificial influence, whereby the mythus 
was partially dispossessed of its hold on the people : but had 
we been able to obtain a periegesis of Greece for the year 
776 B.C., we should have discovered from one end of the 



AND EARLY HISTORY. '. 93 

country to the other nothing but legends, preached by 
the men of genius, received both with earnest emotion and 
with sincere faith by the hearers. 

Transporting ourselves back to this early period, near to 
the time when the Iliad and Odyssey seem to have been 
first promulgated, there is every reason to presume that 
these poems were then listened to as something much greater 
and more sacred than poems in the modern sense of the word. 
They w^ere accepted as inspired legends, describing events 
w^hich had really taken place in a distant past; and they 
w^ere believed quite as literally as the history of Herodotus 
400 years afterwards, when he recited it at the Olympic 
games. To a modern reader, this idea may seem extra- 
vagant : much as he may admire these productions as poems, 
as real histories they will appear to him absurd : the line 
between fact and fiction is clearlv drawn in his mind, and 
the inspiration of the poet has long ceased to be anything 
beyond an unmeaning phrase. But with the early hearers 
of the Iliad, both the point of view and the preliminary state 
of mind were essentially different. What was there to induce 
them to treat descriptions conveyed to them in the most 
vivid narrative poetry ever poured into human ears, as a 
pure invention ? or to draw the distinction between a basis 
of truth and a superstructure of poetical ornament ? One or 
other of these they must do — if we reject the supposition of 
entire faith in what they heard ; both of them are at variance 
as well with the capacities as with the inclinations of an 
age neither able nor willing to discriminate between authen- 
ticated truth and plausible fiction. Inspiration from the Gods 
or from the Muse, coming upon the poet so as to reveal to 
him either the past or the future, is with them a belief both 
sincere and familiar :* the course of nature, as they conceive 

* The Muses, says Hesiod, Theogon. 33, 

IvlTTvevo-av Si fxoi avSrjV 
©etrjv, 0)9 KAetOjtxt ra r icraofjieva irpo t tovra 
Kat /x€ kIXovO v/jiveLV ixaKapcov yivo<; allv coftojv, &C. 



94 GRECIAN LEGENDS 

it, is something not positive and regular, but subject to 
perpetual jerks and breaks, and modified incessantly by the 
special intervention of a God or a Hero. And those por- 
tions of the Iliad which, to our view, divest it so much of 
the semblance of matter of fact — the repetition of super- 
human agency and miracles — these phenomena were not only 
thoroughly consonant to their general belief as to the past, 
but were by far the most impressive and predominant of the 
whole, sinking deeper into the mind and raising emotions 
more powerful than the rest : insomuch that the subtraction 
of such phenomena, far from procuring for the narrative a 
more unhesitating assent, would have rendered it at once 
less plausible to their reason, and less affecting to their 
feelings. So great is the contrast between the tone of 
mind of a primitive Homeric audience, and the preface of 
Thucydides. 

The feelinsfs of the Jews, in reference to the miracles of 
their early history, present a fair standard of comparison to 
illustrate the sentiments here ascribed to the early Greeks : 
and these feelings we can perfectly measure, since the idea of 



Again, line 38, about the Muses — 

EtpeL'O'at TQL T iovTay ra r icToroixeva, irpo t iovra. 

The Homeric Muses are omniscient — 

Y/x€ts yap 6eai ecrre, Trapecrre re, torre re iravra, — Uiad, ii. 484. 

Their inspiration imparts to the poet, and enables him to com- 
municate to his hearers, both what is past and what is to come. 
His statements are not merely agreeable fiction, they are borrowed 
from this inspii'ed source, like those of the prophet or the sooth- 
sayer. The inspiration of Calchas the prophet is described in the 
Hiad almost in the same words as those employed by the poet 
Hesiod with regard to himself. Hiad, i. 70. 

Us 7)07] ra T eovra, ra r €(T(TojJi€va, irpo t eovra, 
'Hi/ Slol fJiavTOcrvvrjv, ttjv ol Trope ^oljSos 'AttoAAcov. 

The bard and the prophet are privileged co-recipients of commimi- 
cation from the Gods. 



AND EARLY HISTORY. 95 

past historical facts, not known upon human authority, but 
revealed by Divine inspiration, as well as that of constant 
miraculous interference — is familiar and admitted amongst 
us as it was amongst the ancient Jews, in reference to the 
Jewish history. We need not employ many words to ex- 
plain in what light any proposition to write the Jewish 
history without miracles would now appear to us, or would 
have appeared of old to the Jews. The whole vitality of the 
history would have seemed to them to have been removed : 
the narrative would lose its hold upon their feelings, and the 
explanations substituted in place of the miracles would ap- 
pear more incredible than the miracles themselves. Nay, 
the mere suggestion that in this or that particular case it is 
not necessary to suppose a miracle, and that some natural 
solution of the phenomena recited may be practicable, is 
even at present not a little offensive, and is often sharply 
censured as a " lowering tone of explanation." Mr. Milman's 
^ History of the Jews,' written in a perfectly religious spirit, 
but exhibiting some disposition to economise the supernatural 
energy, has, by that single circumstance, been deprived of 
much of its legitimate success. Miracles, where the mind 
is animated by a living religious faith, appear quite as 
credible as ordinary facts, and far more impressive : and the 
multitude of them which occur in the Iliad forms not the 
smallest reason for doubting that the primitive Homeric 
audience literally and faithfully believed the events recited 
to them. 

If there be one miracle more than another, throughout 
the Iliad, which would appear to a modern critic imlikely to 
be accepted as a real fact by the audience, it is the speech of 
the horse Xanthus, one of the immortal pair who draw the 
chariot of Achilles. Every reader of Homer will appreciate 
the epical interest and beauty of this incident. Xanthus and 
Balius, offspring of Zephyrus and the Harpy Podarge, iBeet as 
the wind, unmanageable by ordinary hands, and exempt from 
old age as well as from death — have been presented by the 
special favour of Zeus to Peleus, though almost too precious 



96 .GRECIAN LEGENDS 

to partake in the sorrowful existence of miserable man : * 
thev have been lent by Achilles to carry Patroclus to the 

t/ V tl 

field, and have manifested, even by tears, a vehement afflic- 
tion and sympathy for his death. The fierce Achilles, when 
mounting his chariot for the purpose of re-entering the war, 
under all the stimulus of furious a'rief and unsatisfied re- 
venge, discharges his anger partly upon the horses — '^ Now 
take better care to bring me safe back out of the battle, and 
do not leaye me dead on the field, as you left Patroclus." So 
poignant and unmerited an insult is intolerable: and the 
kindness of the Goddess Here lends to Xanthus a voice for 
the purpose of replying to it, which he does in terms full of 
dignity and emphasis. The moment the reply is finished, 
the Erinnyes repress his voice. (Iliad, xix, 407-418.) 

If there could have been introduced among the primitive 
hearers of the Iliad, at the festivals of Smyrna or Chios, in 
the eighth century before the Christian era, a critic of the 
temper of Thucydides, w4io would have said — ^'This incident 
is very good as a poetical incident, but no one can believe it 
to haye really occurred " — what would have been the reply 
made to him ? It would have been made in terms such 
as the reproof by which Athene dispels the scepticism of 
Telemachus (Odyss. iii, 230), and substantially similar to 
the observation of the learned and pious Le Clerc, when he 
comments upon that narrative of the Old Testament where- 



* Homer, Iliad xvii. 442, shortly after the death of Patroclus — 

Mvpo/xei/o) 8' apa rcoye (the horses) tSwi^ iXerjcre Kpovicoj/, 

Ktiz-^cas Se Kaprj, Trporl ov jjiv6r)<TaT0 Ovfjiov 

'A SeiXu), TL (Tcf)u)i So/Jiev JJrjXrj'i avaKTi 

®vr]TW, lu/xets 8' earov ayTypo) r d^ai/aro) re. 

*H IW Svq-TT^voLCTi jJLeT avSpdcFiV a/\y€ e)(r]Tov ; 

Ov fxev yap tl ttov icmv oit,vp(i)Tepov avSpos 

TLdvTcov, bcrcra re yatav eTrt irveUt re kol IpTrct. 

So Thetis complains bitterly that she has been constrained by the 
decree of Zeus to a reluctant wedlock with the mortal man Peleus 
(Iliad, xviii. 431). 



AND EARLY HISTORY. 97 

in the ass of Balaam is miraculously empowered to make a 
speech — a narrative which the Rabbi Maimonides had pre- 
sumed to resolve into a vision of Balaam himself ; Le Clerc 
observes — - 

" God, either by himself or by His angel, produced the same 
effect in the mouth of the ass, as the organist produces in the organ, 
when, by certain motions in the instrument, he brings out various 
modulations. It is not more incredible that God should have been 
able to do this, than that he should have created men, and endowed 
them with speech from the beginning. Really, the thing in itself 
presents no difficulty at all ; and the only objection which can be 
made to the story is, that it appears surprising that a miracle, to 
which there is no parallel, should have been worked for so incon- 
siderable a purpose. For this reason Maimonides and others have sup- 
posed that the events were only seeming events presented in a vision 
to Balaam : but there is nothing in the narrative which can create 
the smallest suspicion that it is a dream which is here described. 
For, although we can discover no reason which should have induced 
God to work so great a miracle, who shall dare to conclude from 
hence that it was not worked in reality ? Who shall pretend to so 
thorough a comprehension of the designs and purposes of God? 
No objection can be raised to render the credibility of this miracle 
dubious." — (Le Clerc, On Numbers, c. xxii* 28.) 

The passage here given from Le Clerc is a faithful 
expression of the sentiment which would have been found 
prevalent among the ancient Jews, the hearers of Jeremiah 
or Ezekiel, though Philo, yielding in part to the influences 
of Greek philosophy, omitted all mention of the incident. 
Nor can there be any doubt that the benevolent miracle 
described in the Iliad as having been wrought by Here to 
relieve the overcharged feelings of Xanthus, was believed 
with equal sincerity, and would have been vindicated on 
similar grounds, by the contemporary Greeks. 

But, though the legendary productions of Greece during 
her earliest ages, acted not only upon the emotions of the 
people as works of art, but upon their belief as supposed 
histories, this point of view was by no means continuously 
maintainerl. Three distinct causes were in operation to 

H 



98 GRECIAN LEGENDS 

alter it, during the 300 years which separate the first re- 
corded Olympiad from the century of Hecataeus, Herodotus 
and Thucydides. 

First, the mere multiplication, diffusion, and modification, 
of the legends themselves, had a tendency to lessen the hold 
of the ancient epic and heroic legends on the national faith. 
The same subject came to be handled in many different 
ways, comformably to the taste of particular subdivisions of 
the Gi-recian world : contradictory attributes and conflicting 
adventures were ascribed to the same person ; and it was im- 
possible to believe them all. Moreover, the increase of com- 
munication between these various subdivisions familiarised 
the travelled man with legends for which he had acquired 
no early reverence, and taught him to distinguish some as 
true, others as false ; some as impressive, others as displeas- 
ing. Mystic rites, and expiatory ceremonies, religious asso- 
ciations, such as the Orphic and Pythagorean, acquired foot- 
ing : Egypt, with its ancient civilization and its many wonders 
and peculiarities, first became largely visited by curious 
Greeks in the sixth century before the Christian era, and the 
effect which it produced upon their religious belief was evi- 
dently considerable ; it not only displaced old legends and 
superadded new, but it seems also to have degraded their 
native antiquities in their own eyes, and to have brought the 
Egyptian priests into higher estimation than their own old 
poets. An influence of this kind pervades especially a large 
portion of the narrative of Herodotus. At last, the legends 
passed from the hands of poets into those of the prose my- 
thographers, who recounted them in a bald and naked style, 
and thus deprived them of all that auxih'ary genius and fer- 
vour, which had previously kept uj) in the hearers a tone of 
mental exaltation highly favourable to uninquiring faith. 
The mere act of uniting the mythi in one collection, tended 
as well to reveal their inherent discrepancies, as to discredit 
the worse by immediate juxtaposition of the better ; and it 
seems to have been an aggregate view of this sort which drew 
forth the pointed declaration of Hecataeus of Miletus (500 B.C., 



AND EAELY HISTORY. 99 

not more than one generation after the first commencement 
of prose writing) : " Thus saith Hecataeus the Milesian — The 
" fables of the Greeks are many and ridiculous/' &c. This 
brief passage is preserved among the few fragments of his 
writings. Yet Hecataeus was not deeply tainted with scep- 
ticism ; he still continued to recount the story, how the 
golden-fleeced ram, who carried Phrixus and Helle across the 
Hellespont, addressed words of encouragement to the terrified 
Phrixus, after Helle had fallen off into the water. — (Hecat. 
ap. Schol. Apollon. Ehod. i, 256.) 

Secondly, during the interval now under consideration, the 
internal governments of the Greeks experienced violent 
change and considerable ultimate improvement ; the inter- 
political law pervading the members of the Hellenic world 
became better settled ; and the moral and social ideas as- 
sumed a gentler as well as a juster cast, suited to a pro- 
gressive community. Many of the ancient legends came to 
be entirely at variance with this altered tone of public feel- 
ing. The exploits ascribed to the Gods and Heroes were 
often tarnished with violence, thievishness, treachery, and 
licentiousness — qualities which appeared unworthy and re- 
volting, when tried by a higher standard of morality. The 
rudiments of moral as well as of physical philosophy, began 
to be shadowed out in the minds of intellectual men ; and 
the Colophonian Xenophanes — one of the most conspicuous 
men of his time, and father of the Eleatic school of philo- 
sophy — expressed both his disbelief and his disapprobation 
of the ancient poets with a boldness truly astonishing (b.c. 
567-475). " Homer and Hesiod (he said) had imputed to 
the Gods everything disgraceful and blameable in man: 
theft, adultery, and mutual deceit," * — and Homer was then 
the universal schoolmaster ('E^ ^PX^^ '^^^' '^Ofirjpov iirel 
fjLejjiadrjKao-i 7rdvTe<; — Xenophanes ap. Dracon. de Metris, 
p. 33) : the reader will bear in mind that in those days the 
name of Homer comprehended not merely the Hiad and 



* Xcnophan. ap. Sext. Empiric, adv. Mathcmat., ix. 193. 

H 2 



100 GRECIAN LEGENDS 

Odyssey, but also many other epic poems as well as hymns ; 
and the name of Hesiod was applied hardly less extensively 
to poems of the genealogising class. The hymns to God 
which preceded the banquet (according to Xenophanes) 
ought to comprise nothing but pure ideas and acceptable 
narratives, " excluding as well the battles of the Titans, the 
Giants, and the Centaurs, which were fictions of their pre- 
decessors — as those violent wranglings in which no good 
moral was to be found."* Eespecting the Gods, or the con- 
stitution of the universe, he said, " no one had ever seen or 
known anything clear and certain : for though a man might 
by chance speak ever so rightly about them, he could have 
no means of knowing that he was right : the semblance of 
truth was to be found everywhere " f Nor let us leave un- 
noticed the imposing confidence with which this remarkable 
man proclaimed — " Good wisdom, such as mine, is of more 
value to you than the boxing or the wrestling, — the victories 
with the chariot and in the foot-race, on which you now 
bestow such extravagant honours and donations : for these 
wall do nothing to procure for you a well-regulated com- 
munity, or to fatten the interior of your city." J 

These citations afford striking evidence of the altered state 
of mind with which the old legends had now to deal, and 
indicate how much the idea of an inspired authority was 
passing away from the superior minds. Thucydides, in his 
preface, justly criticises the cool simplicity with which the 
Homeric heroes both put and answer questions implying 
habitual and licensed piracy — " What has brought you here ? 
Are you come on a piratical excursion ?" We may be pretty 



* Xenophan. Fragm. 1, Poetse Graec. ed. Schneidewin, p. 41. 

^ Kat TO fjikv ovv craves ovns avrjp tSey, ovTe tl<s ccrrtv 
E tocos afjicfil ^€0)1/ T€ /cat acrcra Xeyo) Trcpt TravTinv, 
Et yap Kat ra /xoXtorra ru^^ot rereXco^/xei/ov ctTTcbr, 

AvTO% OjJ.ixi^ OVK OtSe, SoKOS 8' CTTt TTaCTL T€TVKTaL. 

— Xenophanes ap. Sext., adv. Mathem. Empiric, 

vii. 60, viii. 326. 
J Fragm. 3 Schneidewin. 



AND EARLY HISTORY. 101 

sure that this observation, marking as it does a complete 
revolution in the received public morality, had been made 
long before Thucydides, and that, in particular, it did not 
escape the clear-sighted and eminently regulative genius of 
Solon. 

A third cause there was, of not less importance in the 
present examination : between the century of Homer and 
that of Thucydides, the habit grew up of recording and 
connecting positive and present facts, and of determining 
authentic chronology. There was thus gradually created, 
among the superior minds, what may be called an historical 
sense — a habit of requiring positive evidence, and of distin- 
guishing the certified truth from the uncertified, though 
plausible, supposition — of acknowledging a regular course 
of nature, and not looking beyond or above it for the expla- 
nation of particular phenomena. The intellectual disposi- 
tions suitable to an historiographer, in regard to present or 
recent events, exist to the utmost perfection in Thucydides : 
nothing greater or better of its kind has been produced, even 
to this day, than his history. What Thucydides was in 
historical evidence, his contemporary Hippocrates was in 
pathological : we shall transcribe, from the latter, one out of 
many passages, which illustrates the altered modes of judg- 
ment now introduced amongst instructed Greeks. Discuss- 
ing the habits of the Scythians, in his treatise JDe Aere, Locis^ 
et Aquis, Hippocrates specifies certain disorders and peculiar 
debilities to which they were subject, and adds — 

" The Scythians themselves ascribe the cause of this to God, and 
reverence and bow down to such sufferers ; each man fearing that he 
may suffer the like. But to me, in my judgment, both these affec- 
tions, and all others besides, appear to be divine : no one amongst 
them is either more divine, or more human, than another, but all are 
alike and all divine : nevertheless each of them has its own physical 
cause, and not one supervenes without such physical cause." * 



* Hipp. De Aere, Loc. et Aq, c. 22. Ot jxlv €7rt;(wptot tyjv alTcrjv 
TTpoa-TiOiacTL 6e(^, kol crijiovTaL rovriovs tovs avOp^irovs kol irpocrKV^ 



102 GRECIAN LEGENDS 

The belief here ascribed to the Scvthians would have 
found perfect sympathy, as well in the bosom of the 
untaught contemporaries of Hippocrates, as in that of the 
Homeric man, the primitive hearer of ancient Grecian 
mythus : while to all men imbued with the Hippocratic or 
Thucydidean order of thought, the mythus might serve as a 
stimulus to the fancy and emotions, but it could no longer 
be retained as a genuine, serious, and literal faith. 

We have thus briefly explained how the ancient legends, 
during the interval between Homer and Thucydides, came 
to lose that easy sway and imsuspecting assent upon which 
their original authors had counted, and which appears to 
us (we may say it in passing) to be one of the causes of 
the unaffected and inimitable beauties of the Hiad and 
Odyssey. Yet to reject these legends avowedly and as a 
whole, would have disconnected a man from the religion of 
his country in a manner highly painful to his feelings ; 
not to mention that the reverence for Homer, implanted 
by the education of every intellectual Greek, amoimted in 
itself almost to a religion, so as to render it imperiously 
necessary that the honour of the poet should be preserved. 
The result was, a new impulse, partaking of both the dis- 
cordant forces — one of those thousand imcon scions compro- 
mises between the rational convictions of the mature man, 
and the indelible illusions of early faith, religious as well as 
patriotic — which human affairs are so often destined to 
exhibit — 'yL^vojxeva fjuev, koI del icro/xeva, eco<; av rj avrrj (f)v<jt^ 
Tcbv dvOpcoTTcov fj, Thc modc of compromise was not the 
same in all cases : but one of two processes was commonly 
resorted to. 

The philosophical men distinguished between the literal 
meaning, and the concealed or symbolical meaning, of the 



viovcri^ ScSotKores Trept ioivrio^v eKacrrot. 'EjU-ot 8e koL avriiD SoKeet ravra 
TOL 7rd6ea Oeua elvat, kol TaXXa Trdvra, koL ovSev crcpov iTepov OetoT^pov 
ovSe dvOpojTTiVWTcpov, dA.Xa TrdvTa ofxota kol Trdvra Oeca' e/cacTTOi/ ^€ ep^et 
cpvcTLV Tu)V TOLOVTwv, Kttt ovSkv dv€v ^wto9 ytyvcTat. 



AND EARLY HISTORY. 103 

ancient legends. They professed to detect in them physical 
or moral truths under the veil of allegory, which had been 
forced upon the poet, as they pretended, only by the imper- 
fect apprehensions and childish fancies of his hearers. They 
thus continued to believe and respect the ancient legends, 
but it was in a new sense of their own, totally different from 
the primitive and ordinary sense. They believed in Homer 
the philosopher, as contrasted with Homer the poet — a dis- 
tinction completely foreign to the apprehensions of the 
original hearers of the Iliad. It forms no part of our present 
task, though the subject is one highly interesting, to follow 
out in detail the various eccentricities of this exegetical 
system, pushed to excess by xlnaxagoras and Metrodorus, but 
adopted more or less by almost all the philosophers, and 
especially prevalent during the Orientalised state of the 
Pagan mind in the third and fourth centuries after the 
Christian era. 

Those men who, without devoting themselves much to 
pure speculation, were yet essentially positive-minded, of 
whom Thucydides, Polybius, and Strabo may be taken as 
the types, w^re not averse, on special occasions, to recognise 
the preceding theory: but for the most part they took 
another course ; they distinguished between Homer the 
historian or relating witness, and Homer the poet — between 
a basis of truth and matter of fact, and a superstructure of 
ornament and exaggeration. The statements of the Iliad 
and Odyssey were alleged to be, in the main, both histori- 
cally and geographically correct, but coloured, enlarged, and 
varied, for purposes of poetical effect : and Strabo maintains, 
in the most emphatic language, that it was quite unworthy 
of Homer to start from any other point of commencement 
than that of actual matter of fact.* We have here again to 
remark, that this distinction between historian and poet is 



* See Strabo, i. p. 20, Casaub. The same opinion is advocated 
throughout the larger portion of his first book, in continued con- 
troversy with Eratosthenes. 



104 GRECIAN LEGENDS 

the idea of a subsequent age, and would have been thoroughly 
incomprehensible to the original hearers of the Iliad : posi- 
tive history was then unknovA^n. 

How or where to draw the line between the supposed basis 
of fact and the superstructure of fiction, was the grand diffi- 
culty inherent in this hypothesis — not a tittle of evidenc^e 
being available for its solution. There was one point, how- 
ever, in which they pretty generally agreed : they dismissed 
the special interferences of the gods, together with all super- 
natural motives and agency, and they degraded the Heroes 
into ordinary men. Such a chauge was alone sufficient to 
suck the life-blood out of the ancient legend, and to reduce 
it to an emaciated skeleton, as any one may see who tries to 
apply the process to the Iliad : along with the gods and 
heroes disappear all the actual motives and determining 
forces which the poem off'ers. To supply the place of all 
these, Thucydides, in his preface, furnishes us with a brief 
sketch of what he calls the Trojan war, conducted according 
to approved political views, and appreciated according to the 
same reasonings which he applies in criticising the siege of 
Syracuse by Nicias. The Agamemnon of Thucydides takes 
the command, '' not so much because the suitors of Helen 
had been previously bound by an oath (we see here that 
Thucydides had to displace the purely personal motives 
assigned by the old legend, but did not dare to reject them 
altogether), as because he was the most powerful prince in 
Peloponnesus : " * the Homeric catalogue is treated as an 



* Thucyd. i. 9. 'Aya/^e/xi/wi/ Se fjiOL SoKei tCjv rore SwajxeL Trpov^wv, 
Koi ov TocrovTOV TOL<s TvvSdpeu) bpKOis KaT€L\r]fJijjL€VOvs Tovs iJiV7]crTrjpa<s 
TrapaXafSiiiv^ tov cttoXov ayeipai, 

Thucydides then proceeds to show how x\gamemnon acquired 
this great power, which he traces back to Pelops. Pelops was, he 
states, an Asiatic, who came with great wealth among the poor 
population of Peloponnesus, and by means of his wealth acquired 
both great power, and the privilege of giving his name to the 
country. Here the great historian silently obliterates the legen- 
dary Pelops — the IleAoi// irXri^nnros of the Iliad, who receives his 



AND EAELY HISTOBY. 105 

authentic muster-roll, and is supposed to afford evidence, 
that the power of Greece in those early days had been much 
smaller than it was in the Peloponnesian war : the Greeks 
were detained ten years in the prosecution of the siege, 
because they could not employ their whole force at once, 
but were compelled, from poverty and want of provisions, to 
send one detachment to cultivate the Chersonese, and others 
to plunder the neighbouring towns : this necessity of dis- 
persing their force was the only reason which induced them, 
immediately after a successful battle with the Trojans, to 
build a wall and rampart round their camp (Thuc. i. 8-12). 
Now such remarks all proceed upon the supposition that the 
statements in the Iliad are to be taken as trustworthy, sub- 
tracting only \\ hat is divine, heroic, miraculous or otherwise 
incredible : but the misfortune is, that these latter elements 
are so interwoven with the constitution of the poem, from 
the first book to the last, that you cannot pluck them out 
without tearing the poem to tatters. And this, in point of 
fact, Thucydides does : he gives an entirely new view of the 
Trojan war, preserving the statistics, chronology, and topo- 
graphy of the Iliad, but introducing actors and agencies of 
his own, such as the Homeric hearer would neither have 
understood nor cared for. The result is a sort of palimpsest, 
not unlike those of the monks in the middle ages, when they 
rashly^ obliterated a manuscript of the ^neid, in order to fill 
the same parchment with their own chronicles. It is with- 
out the smallest aid from extrinsic evidence (we again 
repeat) that Thucydides thus cuts down and mutilates the 
old legend, to suit his own historical ideas. Our profound 
reverence for his character as an historian, must not restrain 



sceptre from Hermes and Zeus, and bears no trace of Lydian origin 
— and the Uekoxj/ of Pindar, who is suitor of Hippodamia, and 
victorious, by the aid of Poseidon, over her father QEnomaus in the 
chariot-race — a competition in which thirteen suitors have already 
failed and perished. These legendary creations are dismissed to 
make room for an historical phantom, framed on the model of 
Crcesus and Gyges. 



106 GRECIAN LEGENDS 

us from entering an emphatic protest against this proceeding, 
alike unauthorised and unfortunate. 

The pretended matter of fact, which Thucydides gives as 
the basis of the Trojan epic, is open to little remark, because 
it is so exceedingly vague and general. But other authors 
— adopting the same theory as Thucydides, that the epic was 
a suj)erstructure of fiction raised upon a basis of fact — pushed 
the element of fact much farther, even to the specialties and 
particular incidents of the Homeric poems. Some truth 
(they thought) was to be found at the bottom of all of them. 
To revert to the same example upon which we before touched 
— the horses of Achilles. The chariot of Achilles is made 
ready to carry Patroclus into the field, and the immortal 
horses Xanthus and Balius are placed under the yoke : along- 
side of them is attached, as an outrigger, the mortal horse 
Pedasus. The epical importance of this distinction is 
forcibly felt when the combat between Patroclus and Sar- 
pedon comes to be described : the spear of the latter misses 
Patroclus, but pierces the horse Pedasus, who falls and 
expires : the two remaining horses start asunder, the yoke is 
strained and crackles, and the chariot becomes unmanageable, 
until Automedon, the charioteer, draws his sword and severs 
the rein of the expiring animal. But the Scholiasts were 
not satisfied with a simple illustration of the epical narrative : 
they sought to determine the real matter of fact from which 
the poet had started when he called Xanthus and Balius 
immortal, and Pedasus mortal : and the following is one of 
their solutions, as given by Eustathius (ad Iliad, xvi. 147). 
Xanthus and Balius were entire horses, .possessing the power 
of propagating their species : they were, therefore, quasi- 
immortal. But Pedasus was a gelding, and unable to im- 
mortalise himself in his offspring : he was for this reason 
called mortal, xlccordingly, the Homeric statement that 
Patroclus set forth with two immortal horses, and one mortal 
horse, attached to his chariot, was merely a poetical way of 
describing the matter of fact historically true — that he had 
two stallions and one geldin< 



«• 



AND EARLY HISTORY. 107 

Our readers will deem this nothiDg better than an in- 
genious absurdity ; but we assure them that the Scholia on 
Homer will furnish copious parallels to it. Nay, we can 
point out explanations, hardly less unfortunate, sanctioned 
by the name of the judicious and estimable Polybius, when 
he steps aside from his career of positive history to dig for 
matter of fact in the ancient legends. The Homeric ^olus 
in the Odyssey is familiar to every one. He dwells in a 
floating island, surrounded by a brazen wall ; he has six sons 
and six daughters, and he marries the one to the other ; he 
is, by appointment of Zeus, dispenser of the winds, which he 
imprisons or sets free at his discretion. Odysseus, driven 
by storms to the island, and being hospitably entertained for 
a month, solicits a course homeward ; and ^olus not only 
grants to him a special Zephyrus to impel him in the right 
direction, but puts into his hands a closed leather bag con- 
taining all the other unfavourable winds in strict confinement. 
Unfortunately Odysseus falls asleep when within sight of 
Ithaca ; his companions, from guilty curiosity, untie the bag, 
and immediately all the winds, having obtained their liberty, 
raise a furious storm, which drives the vessel back to the 
island of iEolus ; who now repels Odysseus with abhorrence, 
as one under the special displeasure of the immortal Gods. — 
(Odyss. X. 1-75.) 

We briefly recite the various characteristics of the Homeric 
-^olus, in order that the reader may see how essentially 
gaseous the conception is, and how completely it defies all 
possible compression into the solidity which our judgments 
require in matter of fact. Much, indeed, are we astonished 
to observe that Mr. Fynes Clinton (Introd., p. vii.) treats 
^olus as a man of flesh and blood, belonging to some given 
year before the Christian era ; he retains the Homeric sub- 
ject without any of the Homeric predicates, and, therefore, 
without ascertained predicates of any kind. But Polybius 
goes farther, and draws up a new set of predicates for ^olus,- 
who was a person (he tells us) possessing unrivalled skill 
in navigation, and unerring in his anticipations of coming 



108 GEECIAN LEGENDS 

weather ; this was a real matter of fact, of whicli the Homeric 
description is a mere colouring and exaggeration. (Polyb. 
xxxiv. 2; also ap. Strab. i. p. 21-24.) In like manner 
Polybius described the Cyclopes and Laestrygones of the 
Odyssey as haying been, in point of fact, savage and inhos- 
pitable men, resident in Sicily ; and the Scylla and Charybdis, 
by whom Odysseus so narrowly escapes being swallowed up, 
as poetical representations of the real dangers arising from 
numerous pirates in the Straits of IMessina. Strabo, too, 
speaks of the amazing expeditions ascribed to Dionysus and 
Hercules in the same category with the extended yoyageg 
of the Phoenicians ; he explains the story of the descent of 
Theseus and Peirithous into Hades, by referring it to the 
length and celebrity of their real earthly marches ; and he 
derives the prayers addressed to the Dioskuri, as guardians 
and preservers of mariners in danger at sea, from the 
celebrity ^hich they had acquired as real men and navigators. 
(Strab. i. p. 48.) Such hypotheses may, perhaps, be less 
fantastic than the explanation cited above from the Homeric 
Scholiast respecting the horses of Achilles; but assuredly 
they are neither less erroneous nor less arbitrary. 

Eratosthenes seems to have stood almost alone in con- 
tending that Homer was to be considered as a poet, "ad- 
dressing himself to the emotions, not seeking to impart 
instruction." (crro^a^ecr^at yfrv^aycoycaf;, /cat ov SiSaa/ca- 
Xta9.) With regard to the localities described in the 
Odyssey as visited by Odysseus, he said that it would be 
time enouo;h to look for them in reality, when the name of 
the currier had been ascertained who sewed the leathern bag. 
wherein iEolus imprisoned the winds. (Eratosthenes, ap. 
Strabo i. p. 15-24.) This doctrine was strenuously combated 
not less by Polybius and Strabo, than by the great astro- 
nomer Hipparchus, who all of them treated Homer as the 
grandfather of geographical science, of social philosophy, 
and of the habit of transmitting to posterity historical facts. 
They admitted, indeed, that his means of information had 
been imperfect, and that he had indulged in poetical license 



AND EAELY HISTORY. 109 

and exaggeration ; but they still professed to detect every- 
where traces of geographical reality, and vehemently con- 
tended that all his fictions were ornaments superinduced 
upon a basis of truth. It is not uninstructive to contrast 
ancient criticism with modern ; Mr. Payne Knight treats all 
who helieve in the local reality of the voyage of Odysseus in 
the Odyssey, and all who disbelieve the historical basis of the 
Iliad, as men alike silly and out of their senses. (Pro- 
legomen. ad Homer, c. 49-52, 53.) 

It would be easy to multiply examples out of ancient 
writers, of this transfusion of legend into history ; but we 
can only find room for one more, out of Pausanias. This 
writer is a conscientious observer, a profoundly pious man, 
and a believer in miracles not merely past but present ; he 
retains much of the old reverential faith towards Grecian 
legend, cites Cinsethon, Asius, and other genealogical poets 
with unqualified confidence, and Homer with a feeling even 
stronger than simple confidence. Yet there are cases in 
which even Pausanias cannot literally believe, and one of 
them is the story of the well-known Trojan horse. But, to 
escape the necessity of rejecting the statement point-blank, 
he transforms it into accordance with his own taste. The 
Trojan horse (he says) was in reality an engine for battering 
down the walls of Troy, employed by the Greeks : " whoever 
thinks otherwise, must impute to the Trojans inconceivable 
silliness." (Pans. i. 23-8.) Nothing can be more just than 
the criticism of Pausanias, if we treat the siege of Troy as an 
historical event. But when we view it as a legend, it will be 
seen that the incident of the literal Trojan horse '' pregnant 
with armed men," is, in the highest degree, consistent and 
suitable. It saves the honour of the impregnable walls, 
built by Poseidon and Apollo — for the Trojans themselves 
make the breach ; it taints with fraud the ultimate success 
of the Greeks, and thus prepares us for the signal calamities 
which the anger of the Gods is about to inflict upon them 
both in and after their return ; moreover, the very point 
upon which Pausanias grpunds his unbelief, tlie extreme 



110 GRECIAN LEGENDS 

childishness implied in the Trojans, is thoroughly consonant 
to the general body of sentiment on which the ancient legend 
rested. Quos Deus vidt perdere, prius dementat — the man 
marked out for destruction is abandoned by the Gods and 
deprived of his foresight and powers of self-defence.* 



* In proof of what is here said about the Trojan horse, we need 
only refer the reader to the second book of the ^neid, where the 
incident is presented in its genuine character, and with the most 
striking effect. The Gods have doomed Troy to destruction ; the 
Trojans are blinded and rendered the willing agents of their own 
ruin ; the horse, constructed by Epeius, with the divine aid of 
Pallas, is the instrument; Laocoon, whose undisturbed reason 
stands in the way of the purpose of the Gods, perishes by a cruel 
death — " Et si fata Deilm, si mens non lasva fuisset," &c. (ver. 55.) 

Again, ver. 234 — it is ^neas who speaks — 

" Dividimus muros, et moenia j)andimus urbis ; 

Accingunt omnes operi 

Pueri circum innuj^taeqiic puelLnG 
Sacra canunt, funemque manu contingere gaudent : 

Ilia subit 

quater ipso in limine portae 
Substitit, atque utero sonitum quater arma dedere. 
Instamus tamen immemores, ccecique furore 
Et monstrum infelix sacrata sistimus arce." 

The suitors in the Odyssey, shortly before their destruction, are 
plunged by Pallas into a fit of insanity ; they talk, laugh, weej), 
and perform other acts, like senseless men, without knowing why ; 
they despise the warnings of Theoclymenus (Odyss. xv. 345-370). 
The Gods sometimes take away a man's reason and infuse foolish 
counsels into him (Iliad, xvii. 469 — xviii. 311). 

This " inconceivable folly " of the Trojans, upon which Pau- 
sanias dwells in reference to the Trojan horse, is in like manner 
argued upon by Herodotus, when he cites the story told to him by 
the Egyptian priests about Helen. According to them, Paris, 
when he eloped with Helen from Sparta, was driven by storms to 
Egypt, where Proteus, king of the country, detained both her and 
the stolen property, in trust for Menelaus ; sending Paris away 
by himself with sharp rebukes and menaces. When the Greeks 
arrived before Troy, and re- demanded Helen, the Trojans affirmed 



AND EARLY HISTORY. Ill 

But the most elaborate example of this method of his- 
toricising ancient legend, is to be found in the narrative of 



that she was not nor ever had been there : they persisted in that 
answer until the city was taken, and it was then found that they 
had spoken truly, for Menelaus did not discover Helen there, nor 
did he regain possession of her until he came to Egypt (Herod, ii. 
115-120). 

'' Now I (says Herodotus — we give the substance) believe this 
tale of the Egyptian priests. If Helen had been in Troy, she 
would have been given up to the Greeks whether Paris consented 
to it or not. For Priam and his relatives were not so utterly insane 
[ovTw cf^pevopXafSrjq) as to encounter the extremity of peril for them- 
selves, their children, and their city, in order to preserve Helen for 
Paris : even if Helen had lived ivitJi Priam himself, he would have 
given her up, as a means of escape from such terrible calamities. 
Besides, Paris was not the eldest son and successor of Priam : 
there was Hector, his elder brother, and more of a man than he 
(dvrjp iK€ivov fxaWov iu)v), who cannot be reasonably supposed to 
have abetted his brother in an act of injustice so destructive 
to himself and his country. No : — they did not give Helen up, 
only because they could not : the Greeks did not believe them, 
even when they spoke the truth — in my judgment, by the special 
provision of God — in order that they might be destroyed root and 
branch, and might thus become a warning to mankind, that ' upon 
great crimes the Gods inflict great punishments.' " 

Mr. Payne Knight, also, is amazed and incredulous about the 
" folly " of the Trojans : he (Prolegom, c. 53) tells us that the 
Greeks and the Trojans can hardly have been such fools as to take 
so much trouble and suffer so many calamities "/or one little 
woman'' " Nam Helena, si prsetexta, vix vera causa tanti belli esse 
potuit : nunquam enim homines usque adeo fatui et stulti fuerunt, 
ut pro una muliercula, aut illi tot labores suscipere voluissent, aut 
isti tot mala sustinuerint." And then Mr. Knight gives us a sketch 
of the true causes of the Trojan war — repeating the political fancies 
of Thucydides, amplified by some other fancies of his own. 

''For one little woman!'' We can hardly bring ourselves to 
transcribe the words as applied to Helen ! And this from a scholar 
who must have had present to his mind not only the third book of 
the Iliad, but the fourth book of the Odyssey, and especially that 
passage in which we are informed that the possession of Helen, as 



112 GEECIAN LEGENDS 

tlie Trojan war given in prose by Dictys Ore ten sis. Any one 
who is disposed to treat the siege of Troy, not as a legend 
but as an historical event, cannot do better than take this 
narrative as it sta^nds. He will find in it everything reduced 
to a consistent and credible historical march — decent and 
well-behaved historical personages from beginning to end — 
the freaks and abnormities of the original tale are made to 
give place to a series of consecutive proceedings, conducted 
according to the received rules of diplomacy and political 
genius. One thing alone is wanting to give to Dictys Cre- 
tensis a high place among historians — unfortunately this one 
thing is the very soul of history —a slight infusion of evidence 
either positive or presumptive. Evidence it has none, either 
in the general features or in the details : it is fiction, without 
the charms of fiction, clothed only in the stolen and un- 
suitable habiliments of truth. 

We have briefly indicated these various interpretations of 
the Grecian mythi by various historical and geographical 



a wife, procures for Menelaus, not merely the exalted rank of son- 
in-law of Zeus, but also immortality, and a residence in the Elysian 
plain along with Ehadamanthus, in the most delicious climate con- 
ceivable (Odyss. iv. 564)! It is some relief to us that Mr. Knight 
employed the word vix instead of 7ion, in rejecting the received belief 
that Helen was the cause of the Trojan war : had he peremptorily 
denied this, the shock to our faith would have been intolerable. 
Would he have ventured even to intimate a doubt, in the presence 
of an j^Eolic audience in festival, 800 years before the Christian era, 
fresh from the hearing of the third book of the Iliad ? 

Now all these objections of Pausanias, Herodotus, and Mr. Knight, 
against the received narrative of the Trojan war, granting their 
fundamental supposition, are quite unanswerable. If you once 
admit that war to be an historical fact, Helen descends into " a little 
woman," and the Greeks as well as the Trojans become the silliest 
of mankind : you cannot vindicate them from that imputation except 
by cutting out and transforming events, and adding new matter, 
to such a degree that you end by producing a new war of Troy, as 
Dio Chrysostom has done in his eleventh oration. This is, in our 
view, a redudio ad ahsurdum of the fundamental supposition. 



AND EARLY HISTORY. 113 

authors from Thucydides downwards, considering them all 
as different applications of one and the same theory : and 
we have considered the Homeric poems as the type of the 
mythus both in its greatest beauty and in its most complete 
peculiarity as distinguished from positive history. Whether 
we consult Thucydides, who tells us that the siege of Troy 
was prolonged for ten years because the Greeks were too 
poor to procure provisions, and were therefore compelled to 
fortify their camp and send away detachments to cultivate 
the Chersonese — or the presumptuous Scholiast w^ho de- 
grades Xanthus and Balius into ordinary stallions — or Pau- 
sanias. who transforms the Trojan horse into a battering 
engine — or Mr. Knight, when he terms Helen "a little 
woman," for whom none but fooLs would take trouble or 
endure calamity — in all, the assumption is involved, tacitly 
and as a thing of course, that the Grecian epic is at bottom 
matter of fact, only disguised, raagnified, and inaccurately 
e:spressed : and that the pure matter of fact may by analysis 
be separated from its alloy of fiction. 

This assumption we hold to be incorrect — not less incor- 
rect than the opinion of those philosophers who saw in the 
epic only an allegorical veil concealing various positions in 
physics and morals. It passed naturally to the modern 
world from the historians of antiquity, and we have endea- 
voured to point out that in their minds it was a sort of com- 
promise with the ancient literal faith — a semi-belief, w^hich 
seemed to reconcile inherited sentiments and emotions with 
ihe personal rights of reason, and which spared them the 
painful necessity of renouncing altogether the prescriptive 
tales interwoven both with the patriotism and the piety of 
all around them. 

With an ancient Pagan, to pronounce the legends of his 
country altogether ficjtion would have been most repulsive to 
his feelings, and not very promising for his comfort ; because 
it yvould liave placed him in direct conflict with the religion 
of his fellow-citizens. With a modern writer, we might 
imagine that the step would be easy and natural, because 

I 



114 GRECIAN LEGENDS 

he begins by disbelieving all the Gods and the Heroes of 
Paganism, as well as the legends connected with them ; 
unless, indeed, he adopts the theory of Euemerus, that all 
the ancient Gods as well as Heroes were originally real men, 
deified in consequence of seryices rendered to mankind or 
from some other special cause. But this theory, though 
countenanced by Polybius and some other eminent indi- 
viduals, was regarded as a disguised atheism, and never 
obtained extensive currency among the Pagans : it received 
support chiefly from the subsequent Christian writers, such 
as Lactantius and St. Augustin, who found it a convenient 
way of dispeopling the Pagan Olympus. St. Augustin wil- 
lingly adopted the tale of an historical Zeus, of human 
parentage, and born in the time and place specified by 
Euemerus, because it strengthened his argument against the 
worshippers of the God Zeus. But modern writers, not 
being engaged in controversy with living Pagans, do not 
follow him in this facility of historical belief.* 



* Euemerus was generally considered among the Pagans as an 
Atheist — EL'T^/xepo?, 6 i7ru<X7]6ei<; a^eog — Sext. Empiric, adv. Physicos, 
ix. §§ 17 and 51 ; Cicero, De Naturd Deorum^ i. 42. His doctrine is 
sharply denounced by Plutarch on this ground. De Isid. et Osirid. 
c. 23, t. ii. p. 475, Wyttenb. 

For the sentiments of the Christian writers, we may cite Minucius 
Felix (Octav, 20-21) : " Euemerus exequitur Deorum natales ; pa- 
trias, sepnlcra, dinumerat, et per provincias monstrat ; Dict^i Jovis, 
et ApoUinis Delphici, et Pharias Isidis, et Cereris Eleusiniae." And 
St. Augustin (De Civitate Dei, vi. 7) : " Quid de ipso Jove senserunt, 
qui nutricem ejus in Capitolio posuerunt ? Nonne adtestati sunt 
omnes Euemero, qui omnes tales Deos, non fabulosa garrulitate, 
sed historicd diligentid, homines fuisse mortalesque conscripsit ? " 
We may add, also, xviii. 8-14 of the same work; Lactant. De Ira 
Dei; and Clemens Alexandr. Admonit. ad Gentes, pp. 15-18, ed. 
Sylb. 

As Lactantius and St. Augustin adopt the views of Euemerus 
respecting the originally human position of Jupiter and Apollo, so 
Bede, William of Malmesbury, Saxo Grammaticus, &c., treat Woden 
and the ancient Teutonic gods and heroes as having been mere men 



AND EAELY HISTORY. 115 

Eueraerism has, in our eyes, the merit of consistency : it 
applies the same scheme of explanation to the divine and 
the heroic legends, nor is it possible to assign any tenable 
distinction between the one and the other. We adopt an 
explanation the reverse of Euemerism : instead of assuming 
an historical basis for both, we contend that it is fruitless 
to look for such a basis in either, and that both alike grew 
and developed theraselyes out of the feelings and emotions 
of the people. 

We endeavoured to show, in the earlier part of this 
article, that in classifying the stories currently believed 
amongst a community, though a large portion of them con- 
sisted of matters of fact misreported or exaggerated, yet 
another large portion had no foundation in fact at all, but 
were generated by, and illustrative of, certain feelings, com- 
monly both earnest and wide-spread : We pointed out the 
fundamental mistake of confounding pure legend or mythus 
with inaccurate history, inasmuch as the mode of treatment 
suitable to the one was totally misapplied with regard to the 
other: We showed that mere plausibility— i.e. consonance 
with pre-existing feelings common to speakers and hearers 
— was amply sufficient, without any positive evidence, both 
to call forth and extensively to accredit such fictions : We 
illustrated, by the case of Lord Byron's life, the material 
fact, that even in our present age, when muniments of 
evidence are multiplied and accessible, and when historical 
research is effectively prosecuted, still the mythopceic pro- 
pensity was fruitful and unsubdued ; and that the minds 
of the nineteenth century — " sine ullis Conjugiis> vento 



falsely deified. See Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, art. ' Helden/ 
cap. xi., and the curious citations in that instructive article. One 
from Albericus we transcribe (p. 201) : " In hac generatione decima 
ab incarnjatione Domini (i. e, before) regnasse invenitur quidam 
Mercurius in Gottlandia insula : a quo Mercuric, quo Wodan dictus 
est, descendit genealogia Anglorum ot multorum aliorum," &c. 
This is to the full as authentic as Mr. Clinton's Phoronetis, 

I 2 



116 GRECIAN LEGENDS 

grayidae" — were ready to pour forth, and still more ready- 
to welcome, impressive legends calculated to satisfy any 
earnest feeling which animated them. Finally, we added^ 
that transporting ourselves back to Greece in the seventh 
and eighth centuries before the Christian era, when recorded 
matter of fact was unknown, we should find the empire of 
mythus all but omnipotent, and the necessity of requiring 
some positive evidence as a condition of belief, neither 
recognised nor thought of, even among the superior minds 
of the community; plausible fiction in exclusive vogue, 
authenticated truth not yet risen above the horizon. 

The countless divine le^fends eno:endered durins; these 

C (D CD 

ealry ages by the religious feelings of the Greeks, both attest 
and elucidate what has been here advanced. Such tales are 
found possessing the firmest hold on the public mind and 
belief, yet confessedly without any foundation in fact ; 
emanating originally from the poets or other productive 
minds of the community, but adapted by them to the state 
of feeling which they shared in common with the rest, and 
requiring no stronger certificate to procure for them both 
a cordial welcome, and a sincere belief. 

A-UToStSaKTOS 8 €t/Xt, ^€0$ §€ jJLOi kv (j>p€<jlv Ot/Xa? 

IlavTOtas evecfivcrev, 

says Phemius in the Odyssey (xxii. 347). The self-taught 
bard, whose nature is penetrated in all directions by the 
heavenly inspiration, is in this state of the public mind 
the most irresistible of all witnesses ; his information, like 
that of the prophet and the soothsayer, is eagerly caught 
at by the auditors as proceeding from that source in which 
they most implicitly and unhesitatingly confide. 

But the religious feeling, though at that time stronger, 
more pervading, and more prolific than any other, has yet 
no exclusive privilege to create accredited fiction. Other 
feelings, when earnest and diffused, will produce the same 
result, though religion blends itself and coalesces more or 
less with them all. An abundant growth of mythi, semi- 



AND EAELY HISTORY. 117 

divine and semi-human, is the spontaneous produce of such 
a soil — mythi quite as much independent of matter of fact 
as the legend of Zeus and Here — mythi which spring out 
of, and are sustained by, some prevailing hopes, fears, sym- 
pathies, admiration, antipathy, — any sentiment whatever, 
provided only it be fervent and shared by a considerable 
number of persons. 

To this latter class the early poetical legends of Greece 
seem to us to belong — the Trojan war, the Argonautic 
voyage, the hunt of the Calydonian boar, the labours and 
sufferings of Hercules, the tales of Cadmus and GEdipus, the 
invasion of Attica by the Amazons, with several others. It 
is from the aggregate of mythi such as these, that what is 
called the history of Greece prior to the commencement of 
the Olympiads has been made out. In respect of beauty 
of incident and genius of combination, there are very great 
differences between these various legends : in respect of 
evidence, homogeneous origin, and common influence over 
Grecian sentiment, they are all in the main alike. They 
constitute the heroic antiquities of Greece, a world com- 
pletely distinct from the world of historical fact, and con- 
nected with it only by that thread of genealogy which the 
great families in -every Grecian community prided themselves 
in tracing up to the heroes and the gods. 

Of the particular circumstances which originally deter- 
mined these legendary creations of the Grecian mind, our 
means of knowledge do not enable us to speak; but the 
Trojan war, the most memorable of them all, belongs to a 
class of which several parallels can be produced. To the 
^olic and Ionic colonists, a cluster of men from various 
Grecian tribes who had migrated to Asia Minor and acquired 
for themselves settlements by extruding the prior occupants, 
it was pleasing to imagine a supposed expedition of their 
gods and their heroes to the same shores in some distant 
period of the unknown past: the victory so obtained by 
these superhuman persons gave to their descendants what 
may be called a mythical title to the territory which they 



118 GRECIAN LEGENDS 

occupied. The gods and heroes, those who were worshipped 
in the festivals of the Asiatic Grecian islands and towns, as 
well as in the gentile sacrifices of the illustrious families, 
constituted the prime agents in this supposed past expe- 
dition ; the conductors of the ^olic emigration w^ere con- 
sidered as the personal descendants of Agamemnon (Strabo, 
xiii. p. 582), and the rights acquired by the conquest of the 
latter were believed to have been transmitted to his progeny. 
This seems to have been the basis of a legend, afterwards 
expanded and adorned to so prodigious an extent by the 
splendour of the Grecian epic. The idea of a right to the 
soil, deduced from such leo:endarv events, occurs not unfre- 
quently in Grecian proceedings. The Athenians contended 
that their right to Sigeium was as good as that of the Mity- 
lena)ans, because their piogenitors had taken part in the 
Trojan war (Herodot. v. 94). According to the Cyrenian 
legends, Apollo had carried off the nymph Cyrene from 
Pelion, in Thessaly, taken her into Africa, and established 
her as mistress of the soil on which the city stood (Pindar, 
Pyth. ix. 5). When Dorieus, the younger brother of Cleo- 
meues, king of Sparta (and of course of Heracleidan descent), 
was about to lead out a colony, he was apprised by persons 
familiar with current oracular dicta or prophecies, that the 
territorv round Mount Eryx, in Sicilv, belono:ed of rio-ht to 
the descendants of Hercules, because Hercules himself had 
acquired it by his victory over the indigenous Eryx ; and 
he was determined by this announcement to conduct his 
colonists to the spot (Herodot. v. -43). But perhaps the most 
curious example of the application of a legend to sustain 
pretended right to territory, is to be found in the case of 
the Athenians in regard to Amphipolis. The first attempt 
made by the Athenians to establish this important settle- 
ment, on the river Strymou, in the territory then belonging 
to the Edonian Thracians, dates in the vear B.C. 465, fifteen 
years after the battle of Plats3a and the expulsion of the 
Persians from Greece ; the first settlers perished, but a 
second body under Agnon permanently maintained the post 



AND EAELY HISTORY. 119 

and built the city, which became both powerful and popu- 
lous. In the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war, it was 
surprised and taken by the Lacedaemonian general Brasidas; 
conformably to the stipulations of the peace of Nicias, it 
ought to have been restored to Athens, but the restitution 
was never consummated. It continued for the next half- 
century as an independent city, in spite of various unavail- 
ing attempts on the part of Athens, until at length it fell 
into the hands of Philip of Macedon among his early con- 
quests ; but the Athenians did not even then abandon their 
pretensions to it, and their ambassadors were instructed 
to acquaint him that he had taken a town which of right 
belonged to them, ^schines, one of the ambassadors, re- 
counts to the Athenian public assembly the arguments by 
which he had tried to convince the conqueror, and amongst 
them he says — {Uepl irapairpea^eia^, c. 14) — 

" Eespecting our original acquisition of the territory, and re- 
specting the sons of Theseus — one of whom, Acamas, is stated to 
have received this territory as a dowry with his wife — it was then 
a suitable occasion to speak, and I enlarged upon the matter as 
accurately as I could ; now, however, I must compress my discourse, 
and I will mention only those evidences (of our rights) derived, not 
from the ancient mythi, but from the events of our own day." 

Here are two remarkable points to be noticed. First, we 
find a narrative, purely legendary or mythical, placed at 
the head of a territorial abstract of title; and that too in 
a thoroughly business-like discussion between the Athenian 
ambassadors and Philip. Next, it is certain that this narra- 
tive must either have been originally invented, or at least 
applied to the territory in question, posterior to the time 
when the Athenians established themselves at Amphipolis, 
since B.C. 465 ; for before that time there was nothing what- 
ever to connect Athenian legends with a spot both remote 
and barbarous. And this illustrates forcibly the point 
maintained by C. 0. Miiller, in his learned ' Prolegomena 
zu einer wissenschaftlichen Mythologie ' — that genuine and 
original legendary inventions continued to be made through- 



120 GEECIAN LEGENDS 

out the historical ao;es — new matter added to the ancient 
mythi (though Miiller has not included it amongst his 
citations, Prolegg., cap. 6, p. 132). If we were in possession 
of the reply of Philip, which JEschines compliments for its 
pertinence and completeness, we should probably find that 
he too was provided with a counter-legend, justifying his 
acquisition of Amphipolis by some ancient mythical grant — 
perhaps from his ancestor Hercules. 

In canyassino: the historical value of Grecian leo;end, we have 
confined our attention chiefly to the early ante-historical class; 
those of which the scene is laid in the remote past, anterior 
to the first Olympiad, or 776 B.C. ; such as the siege of Troy, 
the Argonautic expedition, the Calydonian boar-hunt, the 
legends of Hercules, Cadmus, QEdipus, Theseus, &c. But 
new orio-inal mvthi continued to be invented throuo^hout the 
subsequent ages of positive history; and the example which we 
have cited, in reference to Lord Byrou, proves that the earth 
out of which such plants spring is far from being yet eflfete. 
Of these new creations, some were agforres^ated on to the old 

' Coo 

ante-historical stock, as in the case of the Amphipolitan 
legend connected with the son of Theseus ; but others were 
interpolated into the positive histor^^ and fastened on to 
the ascertained historical persons of the succeeding age. 
Take, as an example, the story of Arion, the celebrated 
harper and dithyrambic poet, recounted by Herodotus (i. 21). 
Arion had gone from Corinth, where he was much protected 
and favoured by the despot Periander, on an excursion to 
the Grecian cities in Italy ; having made large gains in the 
exercise of his profession, he was carrying them back to 
Corinth in a Corinthian ship ; the seamen, eager to possess 
themselves of his gold, compel him to leap overboard in mid- 
sea on pain of being killed, but first grant him permission to 
clothe himself in his solemn costume, to stand upon the 
rowers' bench, and sing the Ortliian nome. Having done 
this Arion jumped into the sea; but a dolpliin, attracted by 
his strains, took him on his back and landed him safely at 
Cape Tsenarus in the south of Laconia, from whence he made 



AND EARLY HISTOKY. 121 

his way back, clothed in his full costume, to Corinth. There 
stood at Taenarus, in the days of Herodotus, a small brazen 
statue, the offering of Arion, representing a man sitting on a 
dolphin. 

Such was the legend respecting the great dithyrambic 
composer Arion. When we add that it was recounted and 
believed, both by the Lesbians and by the Corinthians, in 
the time of Herodotus — -two communities, certainly, among 
the most wealthy and intelligent of Greece, our readers will 
not think it wonderful that the primitive Homeric audience 
should have accepted the Hiad as a literal history of the past. 

Now this story is a precise counterpart of the various 
legends to which we have alluded concerning Lord Byron. 
It contains a basis of authentic fact — perhaps a superstruc- 
ture of exaggerated or misreported fact — and certainly a 
portion of genuine mythus. Arion, like Byron, is an un- 
questionably historical person — a friend of the Corinthian 
Periander, and a great and original dithyrambic poet. 
Perhaps the story of his voyage from Tarentum may be mis- 
reported fact — of this we do not speak with confidence — yet, 
probably a vessel returning from Tarentum to Corinth would 
enter by the Gulf of Corinth, instead of going round Pelo- 
ponnesus, and braving the proverbial dangers of Cape Maleia. 
But it would be a great mistake to treat the story of the 
danger of Arion, and his salvation by the dolphin, as a mere 
exaggeration and mis-report of fact ; it is a mythus quite 
as marked and unequivocal as the Florentine intrigue and 
murders associated with Lord Byron, and traceable to a very 
analogous source. It is composed mainly to illustrate the 
prodigious and superhuman effect of the dithyrambs of Arion, 
and especially of the nomus Orthius, upon men's hearts and 
imaginations ; it is calculated to satisfy the feelings, and win 
the belief, of Greeks who w^ere not less profoundly impressed 
with these lyric efforts, than the German legend-makers were 
with the poems of Lord Byron ; it brings out, in a secondary 
way, the fancy entertained in antiquity, that the dolphin was 
of an affectionate temper and fond of music (Xv 6 cj)i\avXo<; 



122 GEECIAX LEGENDS 

eVaXXe SeX</>^9 — Eurip. Electr., 435 ; see also the Fragment 
of Pindar ap. Plutarch. Terrestria et Aquatilia Animal, c. 36, 
p. 984. c.) We have here, then, a perfect mythus,but tacked 
on to an historical fact and an historical person — a mythico- 
historical incident. 

Now it appears to us that the mistake so commonly made, 
in regard to the Grecian early legends, consists in dealing 
with the Trojan war and the x\jgonautic expedition, in the 
same way as we deal with this story of Arion — in seeking a 
basis of fact for the two former, as we successfully do for the 
latter. There is this essential difference between the two. 
In regard to the Trojan war and the Argonautic expedition, 
the legend stands alone, professing only to refer to an un- 
defined past time: there is no collateral evidence of any 
kind to corroborate either its incidents or the realitv of its 
personal characters. But in the case of Arion, we know the 
existence, the celebrity, and the date of the poet, upon 
evidence quite independent of the legend, just as we know 
the existence of Lord Byron: if we affirm that the legend 
has an historical basis, we do not ground our affirmation on 
the single certificate of the legend itself. When any similar 
independent evidence can be produced to certify the main 
fact of an expedition of confederated Greece against Troy in 
1183 B.C., or the outfit of a commonplace vessel, Argo, from 
Jolcos to Colchis in the preceding generation, we shall then 
readily yield our assent : until this is done, it is unreasonable 
to call for any such historical assent. A certain number of 
the plays of Shakspeare have an historical basis. How do 
we know this ? Xot upon the testimony of Shakspeare 
himself, or of these particular plays themselves, but upon 
positive testimony, independent both of the one and the 
other. Any play for which you cannot, by some independent 
evidence, demonstrate an historical basis, passes ipso fado 
as non-historical. Apply the same test to the early Grecian 
poems, and we exact no more. 

And this brings us back to the principle which we laid 
down some time ago, that the onu^ prohandi always lies upon. 



AND EARLY HI8T0EY. 123 

the historian, and the simple absence of evidence is sufficient 
to put him out of court. Obvious as such a position will 
seem, it places us at issue with an inquirer no less eminent 
than Mr. Fynes Clinton. 

In speaking of the personages of the old Grecian poems, 
belonging to a supposed date anterior to all recorded chrono- 
logy, and long before all positive history, Mr. Clinton says 
(Introduction, p. vi.) :— 

" We may acknowledge as real persons all those whom there is 
no reason for rejecting. The presumption is in favour of the early 
tradition, if no argument can he brought to overthrow it. The 
persons may be considered real, when the description of them is 
consistent with the state of the country at that time : when no 
national prejudice or vanity could be concerned in inventing them : 
when the tradition is consistent and general : when rival or hostile 
tribes concur in the leading facts : when the acts ascribed (divested 
of their poetical ornament) enter into the political system of the 
age, or form the basis of other transactions which fall within known 
historical times." 

Such are Mr. Clinton's rules for appreciating historical 
evidence : we think them every way inadmissible. 

First, — Mr. Clinton practically annuls the obligation of 
positive proof, as incumbent on the historian ; for the obli- 
gation comes to nothing, if he can satisfy it by producing 
simply '^ an early tradition," and then calling upon his 
opponents for arguments to overthrow it. Admit this posi- 
tion, and Brute, the Trojan, may still remain at the apex 
of English history. According to Mr. Clinton's rule, the 
assertions of the early tradition, in respect to times long 
anterior to positive history, will be admitted upon easier 
terms than the assertion of a contemporary witness in regard 
to his own times. For as you know nothing at all of the 
remote past, you cannot produce any evidence to contradict 
events alleged to have then taken place. Mr. Clinton not 
only lightens his own shoulders of all the burden of proving, 
but casts upon those of his adversary a burden of disproving, 
altogether intolerable and unheard of. 



124 GRECIAN LEGENDS 

Secondly, — the word tradition is not merely vague, but 
thoroughly misleading : it acts upon the mind by means of 
an assumption, which being tacitly implied and not openly 
expressed, escapes direct confutation. The plain meaning of 
the word is, a narrative handed down from generation to 
generation ; and fiction may be handed down in this way 
quite as well as fact, as we see by the Grecian religious 
legends. But the assumption whereby this word is made to 
carry evidentiary force, is that the narrative originally arose 
contemporaneously with, and was derived from, the incident 
which it professes to recount. As soon as this assumption 
is clearly stated, we perceive it to be often untrue, always 
gratuitous. The birth and parentage of tradition is essen- 
tially unsearchable — " caput inter nubila condit " — you hear 
the voice, but cannot tell from whence it proceeds. 

Thirdly, — No greater privilege can be required in favour 
of a known and good contemporary witness, than that which 
Mr. Clinton here claims for mere impersonal hearsay. If 
you put into the box a veracious witness who has had means 
of knowing the facts to which he deposes, we are bound 
either to believe him, or to overthrow his testimony by 
argument or counter-testimony. In placing '^ early tradition '^ 
on this very same footing, Mr. Clinton effaces all the gra- 
duating lines by which the value of positive evidence is to 
be determined. 

Fourthlv, — Mr. Clinton overlooks the verv existence of 
jplausihie fiction, and its generic difference from historical 
matter of fact. Plausible fiction will satisfy all the con- 
ditions which he lays down, to determine what persons are 
"real" in the old legends, just as well as authenticated 
truth ; the plausibility of the fiction consists in its satisfying 
such conditions. One of the tests, indeed, furnished by Mr. 
Clinton is to be excepted — " Persons are to be considered as 
real, when no national prejudice or vanity could be concerned 
in inventing them." But, in the first place,, we are far 
too little acquainted with the range of sentiment prevalent 
among the early Greeks to allow of our applying this nega- 



AND EARLY HISTOEY. 125 

tive test in practice: and in the second place, we again 
repeat, that the burden of proof rests with those who claim 
for a narrative or for a person the prlyilege of being in- 
scribed on the tablet of history ; not upon those who treat 
it as uncertified, and for that reason as presumptively 
fictitious. 

It is by no means onr purpose to maintain that there is no 
historical matter in the ancient Grecian leo:ends. ximono-st 
the varied and interesting agglomerate which they compose, 
we doubt not that there are frao-ments of historical matter 
of fact imbedded : and we shall rejoice much when any one 
will furnish some assured criterion bv which to verify them 
and detach them from the rest. How unsuccessful have 
been the attempts hitherto made to accomplish such dis- 
crimination, we desire no better proof than this recent work 
on Chronology by Mr. Clinton, wherein he professes to 
compute the number of generations occupied by Grecian 
legendary personages anterior to the first Olympiad — to 
strike out such as are fictitious, and to retain only those 
which are real. 

To seek a fixed chronological arrangement in this ante- 
mundane chaos, appears to us much the same as if any one 
were to take the flat round plate, constituting the surface 
of the earth as conceived by Homer, — with the deep and 
gentle river Oceanus flowing round it and returning into 
itself, — and distribute it into regular parallels of latitude, 
one passing through the island of Calypso, and another 
through the territory of the Cyclopes. And when we follow 
Mr. Clinton throuo'h the details of his scheme, we remark a 
curious alternation of cautious doubt with extreme licence of 
positive assertion ; enough of doubt is admitted to invalidate 
the whole series, vet numerous statements are made which 
imply that no such doubts ought to Lave application. 

Thus Mr. Clinton tells us (p. 123) '' that the Olympiad of 
Corcebus, B.C. 776, is the first date in Grecian chronology 
which can be fixed upon authentic evidence " — and that "in 
proceeding iipivard, this date is our highest point." The 



126 GRECIAN LEGENDS 

chronology for the anterior period he professes to reckon 
downwards, starting from Phoroneus, 977 years before the 
first Olympiad. But, let us ask, where is the value, and 
what is the credibility, of chronology, reckoned downwards? 
All chronological reckonings in the past must first be made 
upwards : you start from the present, and you then reckon 
upwards to some fixed point in the past, from w^hich you 
may make a fresh start in either direction. If, for example, 
we are to reckon downwards from Phoroneus, we must first 
have performed the reckoning upwards from the present 
time to Phoroneus : if we are compelled, from want of 
" authentic evidence," to suspend our upward reckoning at 
the vear B.C. 776, as Mr. Clinton allows, then anv reckonins: 
downwards to the year B.C. 776, from some undetermined 
point in anterior time such as the supposed epoch of Pho- 
roneus, must be completely illusory. Having informed us 
— most correctly, as we think — that there is no authentic 
chronolog:v hig:her than B.C. 776, Mr. Clinton misfht have 
spared himself the trouble of tracing imaginary chrono- 
logical parallels for the earlier time. 

Again, Mr. Clinton for the most part treats as fictitious 
the general class of eponymous persons — those whose names 
coincide with, and are produced as having given origin to, 
the name of a tribe, a city, a demus, a mountain, a river, a 
spring, &c. This class is very numerous throughout the 
legendary genealogies, and would appear to be still more 
so if we were better acquainted with the nomenclature of 
places and communities throughout Greece. Thus Hellen, 
Caucon, Pelasgus, and others, are, in Mr. Clinton's opinion, 
fictitious persons ; such names and genealogies are not to be 
understood in their literal meaning, but as symbolical of 
certain circumstances in the historv of the tribe--" the 
genealogical expression may be false (he tells us, p. 3), but 
the connexion which it describes is real." This, in our 
judgment, is a just remark, and points at the true value of 
the legendary genealogies : but we must observe, in the 
first place, that Mr. Clinton flinches from the application of 



AND EARLY HISTORY. 127 

his own principle when he recognizes as real persons, Cad- 
mus, Danaus, Hyllus, and others, the eponymous heroes of 
the Cadmeians, the Danaans, and the Doric tribe Hylleis, 
just as Kruse (Hellas, vol. i., cap. v., sec. i., p. 414) dis- 
tinguishes between Hellen and Pelasgus, affirming the 
former to be real, and the latter fabulous : and, in the 
second place, that whoever adopts such a view, subverts 
altogether the general authority of the genealogies, con- 
sidered as attesting personal and chronological reality. For 
w^hen it is conceded that so large a proportion of the story, 
told by the same witnesses, and depending upon the same 
authority, is fiction, we cannot with any reason be called 
upon to admit the remainder as so much authentic history. 

The genealogical tables of Mr. Clinton, conformably to 
this method of partial, scepticism inlaid with general faith, 
present a singular medley of mythical and real personages ; 
a real father preceding a mythical son; or a real son fol- 
lowing a mythical father ; or real personality intermarrying 
with mythical, under the name either of husband or wife. 
It appears to us quite as easy, and w^e will add, not less 
philosophical, to credit the heroic genealogies entire, than to 
accept the mangled limbs of them as they appear in Mr. 
Clinton's pages, distinguished by common and italic type. 

Mr. Clinton contends vehemently for the humanity and 
historical personality of Hercules ; and we understand why 
he is so easy of faith upon this point, seeing that the 
genealogy of the Spartan kings, upon which the compu- 
tations of Eratosthenes as to the date of the Trojan war w^ere 
founded, assumes an unbroken series of real persons from 
Leonidas or Cleombrotus up to Hercules. Tf Mr. Clinton 
can bring himself to believe that Hercules was an historical 
man, we cannot understand why he should have any 
scruple in adopting the entire theory of Euemerus, and in 
humanising not only all the Pagan heroes but all the Pagan 
gods : for there is not a single personage to be found amongst 
them, who, from the mother's womb to the funeral pile, is 
more pointedly distinguished from ordinary humanity than 



128 GEECIAN LEGENDS 

Hercules. We read with amazement the reasoning by which 
Mr. Clinton professes to demonstrate that Hercules was a 
real man who lived so many hundred years before the 
Christian era. If we had not already prolonged this article 
too much, we would analyse them and exhibit their futility : 
upon grounds equally good we would engage to degrade and 
humanise all the divine tenants of Olympus. Nothing can 
be more thoroughly un-Hellenic than to believe in Hercules 
as a man. If we had been born in Greece in the fifth 
century before the Christian era, we should have imbibed a 
faith which would have led us to carry offerings to his 
Herakleion ; w^e should have invoked his aid during peril, 
and should have listened with veneration to the epic poems 
which commemorated his marvellous exploits, his journeys, 
and his sufferings. Perhaps we might have believed, with 
Pindar and the Sicyonians (Pindar, Nem. iii. 21 — Pausan. 
ii., 10, 1), that he combined in mysterious unity the attri- 
butes of a Hero and a God : or we might have adopted the 
conviction of Herodotus, that there were two different beings 
named Hercules : the one a God, the other a Hero (Herod, 
ii. 44). But to conceive Hercules as a real ordinary his- 
torical man, begotten by some father of our own con- 
temptible stature and infirmities, and no nearer to the Gods 
than ourselves, is a tenet which we must have regarded as 
impious and inadmissible. 

In reverence for this ancient faith — now extinct, but once 
so fruitful in productions of lasting beauty — w^e ought at 
least to suffer its magnificent and essentially superhuman 
creations to set, like the tropical sun, with unabated splen- 
dour, without passing through the '^ pale gradation " and 
inglorious commonplace of physical humanity. 

One other observation we will cite from Mr. Clinton. ^^ It 
is necessary (he says, p. 3), for the right understanding of 
antiquity, that the opinions of the Greeks concerning 
their own origin should be set before us, even if these are 
erroneous opinions ; and that their story should be told as 
they have told it themselves." 



AND EARLY HISTORY. 129 

This is just and important : and, if Mr. Clinton had laid 
the remark to heart, he would have spared the heroic 
personality of Hercules, instead of dealing with it upon the 
same principle as the Homeric scholiast applies to the im- 
mortal horses Xanthus and Balius. It is not indeed too 
much to say, that if he had laid this remark to heart, he 
would have re-written his whole early chronology. For he 
constantly abandons the views of the G-reeks, without any 
scruple ; he admits distinctions between real and fictitious 
persons, such as they would never have dreamt of ; he casts 
away, as fictions, personages more frequently thought of, 
and more reverentially believed in, than the rest, viz., the 
eponymous heroes of cities, tribes, and demi. No bribe 
would have induced us to read aloud Mr. Clinton's work in 
the presence of Herodotus. 

We agree, then, with Mr. Clinton, that the antiquities of 
the Greeks should be told as they themselves have told 
them. And the very first condition lor accomplishing this 
object is, that w^e should rightly appreciate the creative and 
unrecording age, of inspired bards and believing listeners, 
in which the early legends originally sprimg up — as dis- 
tinguished from the after-growth of positive and historical 
criticism, to which they were no way adapted, and by which 
they were disintegrated and recast into a seeming chrono- 
logical sequence ; above all, that we should place ourselves at 
the point of view of Grecian religious faith. The antiquities 
of every Grecian state are merged in and identified with its 
religion : without it they become utterly incomprehensible. 
At the opening of the Grecian world, Gods and Heroes, 
beings super-human and extra- human, occupy the canvas : 
realities in the eye of faith — fictions in that of modern 
criticism ; but in no case human realities, nor fit subjects for 
history and chronology. The ancients did indeed introduce 
a sort of chronology even among their Gods and Heroes, for 
it was noway offensive to their belief to speak of a God 
being born, or of one God being more ancient than another. 
But when we once keep in view the light in which the 

K 



130 GKECIAN LEGENDS 

ancients regarded these initial personages in their history, 
it will appear preposterous to expect an adherence to human 
scale or measurement, either in their exploits, their suc- 
cessions, or their duration. " Datur hsec venia (says Livy), 
antiquitati, ut miscendo humana divinis, primordia urbium 
augustiora faciat." Livy here tells us that the history of 
the past is to be accommodated, by a proper mixture of 
things human and divine, to the sentiments, in the minds 
of the present, of what is august and holy. In other words, 
it is to be mythus^ which the sentiment of the present can 
both abundantly supply and profoundly appreciate ; not 
positive matter of fact, which is insufiScient for the purpose 
as well as inaccessible to the view. 

Hekataeus, of Miletus, the historian, boasted of a pedigree, 
for himself and his gens or phratry, commencing with a God 
and descending through fifteen successive links to himself 
(Herod, ii. 143). In like manner the gens to which Thucy- 
dides, the historian, belonged, was traced up to -^acus the 
son of Zeus (Marcellin. Vit. Thuc. init.) : these may serve as 
a specimen of similar genealogies which every noble family 
in the Grecian cities could boast of and commemorate in its 
gentile sacrifices. According to the ancient point of view, 
the God at the top was quite as firmly believed to be a 
reality as any of the members of the series, and was far more 
deeply cherished than the rest : nay, the principal value of 
the whole genealogy was derived from the circumstance, that 
it connected the living members with the God whom 
they worshipped as their progenitor as well as their pro- 
tector. According to the modern point of view, the God 
at least is struck off as a fiction, and the genealogy thus 
becomes essentially acephalous. We have a continuous 
pedigree, of which the last member is indisputably real, the 
first member as indisputably fictitious. At some point or 
other between the two, the line separating fiction from truth 
must be drawn : but we know not where to find that point, 
and Mr. Clinton's rules, which were intended to solve this 
problem, are altogether insufficient and illusory. Whether 



AND EAELY HISTORY. 131 

the undetermined point is to be taken a little higher or a 
little lower in the series, let this be recollected — that to us 
who reject the Grecian religious faith, the earlier pheno? 
mena and the earlier persons of Grecian history are pure 
fable, not exaggerations or mis-reports of matter of fact.* 

Agreeing then as we do with Mr. Clinton in the opinion 
that all authentic evidence of Grecian chronology — all 
chronological reckoning upwards — ceases with B. c. 776 ; we 
are compelled to treat the period earlier than B.C. 776, more 
in accordance with this fundamental supposition than he has 
treated it himself. We regard it as an — 

" Illimitable ocean, without bound. 
Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height, 
And time and space, are lost" — 

the empire of mythus or legend, purely and simply ; jich in 
plausible incidents adapted to the sentiment and accredited 



* As an illustration of the inseparable connexion between early 
genealogies and religious belief, we cite an analogous fact respecting 
the Anglo-Saxon genealogies, from Grimm, 'Deutsche MytJiologie,'' 
Anhang, pp. 1-11, art. "xlngel Sachsische Stammtafeln." "In the 
fifth and sixth centuries," he says, " the Anglo-Saxons at their 
transit into Britain brought with them out of Germany the tale of 
the descent of their noblest families. All of them carry themselves 
back to Woden ; but they sometimes ascend even higher, and enu- 
merate a series of gods or deified heroes as ancestors of Woden. 
After their conversion to Christianity, the attempt was made to 
connect the family stem of these gods and heroes with the Hebraic 
tradition of the first human family — to bring their heathen fore- 
fathers into harmony with the Noah and Adam of Scripture." 
(Anhang, p. 11.) Here we see that the change of religion brought 
about an entire change of the earlier genealogies. 

Grimm thinks that similar genealogies were received among the 
other Teutonic tribes — the Frisians, Westphalians, Franks, &c. 
He treats them as quite worthless in respect to chronological matter 
of fact. " These catalogues of names," he says, " possess not the 
smallest chronological value for the oldest times : they first become 
historical with the lines of the Anglo-Saxon kings. But this 
detracts nothing from the importance of the legend." 

K 2 



132 GRECIAN LEGENDS 

by the reliofion of the auditors, but neither entitled to the 
authority, nor amenable to the laws, of historical reality. 
The scenes which it presents may be looked at, either with 
the eye of pious faith, as they were by the original recipients, 
or with that of aesthetic and poetical faith, by those who 
are unbelievers in the Homeric Pasranism. But in either 
case they must be contemplated from a given and distant 
point of view, which the spectator is not at liberty to alter : 
like the beautiful feminine image which fascinates the gaze 
of Faust whilst in the witch's cell, they vanish into untrace- 
able mist, the moment he approaches either to touch or to 
scrutinise. 

That there is more or less of matter of fact among these 
ancient legends, we do not at all doubt. But if it be there, 
it is there by accident, because it happened to fall in with 
the purpose of the mythopoeic narrator, who will take fact, 
as he takes fiction, when it is suggested by the impulse in 
his own mind, or germane to the sentiment of his hearers. 
To discriminate the fact from the fiction, is a problem which 
we ourselves know not how to solve, in the absence of some 
positive evidence independent of the legend itself. We 
shall gratefully listen, if any one wall teach us : but sure wo 
are that some road must be discovered very far removed from 
that hitherto trodden by historical critics. For w^e cannot 
too strongly protest against the process of picking out pre- 
tended matter of fact, by simply decomposing the legend and 
eliminating all which is high-coloured, or impressive, or 
miraculous; it condemns us to all the tameness and insi- 
pidity of prose, but we remain as far as ever from the cer- 
tainty and solid nourishment of truth. 

For the period after B.C. 776, we conceive that a different 
manner of dealing with evidence becomes both necessary and 
admissible. We then come to tread a beaten chronological 
track, and to deal with assured historical personages: our 
positive information, though scanty, is yet sufficient to afford 
us holding ground when we try to discriminate matter of 
fact either from exaggeration or from fiction. Mythus has 



AND EARLY HISTORY. 133 

ceased to be predominant, but it still continues to spring up 
as an element of itself out of its own soil of emotion and 
sentiment ; attached, indeed, to positive facts, yet in many 
cases clearly distinguishable from inaccuracy or mis-report 
of facts. We tried to illustrate this point by the legend of 
Arion quoted from Herodotus. 

The German poet Schiller, in his beautiful ode, ^Die 
Goetter Griechenlands,' describes the physical world as it 
was conceived in antiquity, replete with personifications, and 
animated in all its localities by unseen beings who mingled 
their sympathies and interests with the chequered lot of 
short-lived man. And he presents, as a repulsive contrast, 
the physical world as it is now studied and understood — a 
lifeless and impersonal aggregate, slavishly obedient to rules 
of which it has no consciousness, and destitute of all sympathy 
with the men who suffer or profit by it. Estimated by a 
poetical standard, the loss has been serious indeed: but 
it has been far more than compensated by the acquisition 
of lasting and substantial benefits. We have obtained in 
exchange an ascertained, methodical, and constantly increas- 
ing body of authentic truth : and we have obtained it, let 
ns remark, not by transforming and refining the imperfect 
ancient physics themselves, but by following cautiously the 
track, and respecting the limits, of positive evidence. There 
were, however, in antiquity, as we have already stated, a 
body of allegorising philosophers, who could neither accept 
literally the interesting personifications of the old world, nor 
strike out for themselves a means of reaching the assured 
results of the new. These men extracted from the ancient 
mythi a string of pretended physical sequences, resolving 
the embraces of Zeus and Here into the descent of the pure 
ether from on high upon the lower strata of the atmosphere, 
and dissipating all the charm of the original conception 
under pretence of banishing exaggeration and poetical orna- 
ment. The allegorised physics of Heraclides and Porphyry 
form a suitable counterpart to the historicised legend. 

There is music in the high-pitched voice and irregular 



134 GRECIAN LEGENDS, ETC. 

rhythm of childhood, and there is soraething better than 
music in the grave tone and discriminating emphasis of the 
mature man. But between the two lies an awkward interval, 
of intolerable harshness and dissonance — the broken voice of 
the youth just bursting into puberty : and this seems to us 
the only fit accent for the reading of the historical war of 
Troy, as it is sketched by Thucydides and Mr. Payne Knight, 
and as it is detailed by Dictys the Cretan. 



ON 



ANCIENT WEIGHTS, COINS, AND 

MEASURES. 



(^Classical Museum, 1844.) 



ON 

ANCIENT WEIGHTS, COINS, AND MEASURES 



M. BoECKH has so long been celebrated in the philological 
world for profound erudition — for method, as well as in- 
genuity, in the combination of scattered facts, and for the 
quality, somewhat rare among eminent scholars, of sobriety 
in the field of conjecture — that no preface is necessary when 
I proceed to offer a few remarks upon one of his recent and 
most elaborate productions * 

The Metrologie is a work not unworthy of its distinguished 
author. The dispersed fragments of evidence, respecting 
the weights, measures, and monetary systems of the ancient 
world — one of the most perplexing subjects in the whole 
range of philology, — are patiently collected, and perspi- 
cuously discussed : and the thirty chapters, of which the 
book consists, are so closely packed with matter, as to for- 
bid the possibility of any condensed abstract of the entire 
contents. The views of M. Boeckh are, in several respects, 
original, differing even from opinions stated by himself in 
former publications : he has, moreover, imparted to the 
subject a new interest, by considering the metrological 
systems of the various countries in antiquity in continual 
comparison with each other, so as to elicit valuable proofs of 



* Metrologisclte Untersuclmngen uher Gewichte^ Munfzilsse, und 
Masse dcs Alterthums in ihrem Zusainmenliange, Von August. Boeckh. 
Berlin, 1838. 1 vol, 8vo. 



138 EEYIEW OF BOECKH 0:N ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

early comtDunion and transition of ideas between them. 
His book embraces the weights and measures prevalent 
throughout all the countries known to us in the ancient 
world, — Babylon, Syria, Phenicia, Judaea, Egypt, Sicily, 
Italy, and Eome: and the comparative metrology of these 
nations is presented to us in a way analogous to the Ver- 
ffleichende Qrammatih of Bopp, in regard to the extensive 
family of the Indo-Germanic languages ; it exhibits the 
diffusion of institutions, originating in the very ancient 
civilization of Babylon, to the neighbouring countries whose 
period of settled ordinances and commerce was more recent. 

Though this transition must have taken place anterior to 
recorded history, and, therefore, in a manner which we cannot 
now fathom, yet the reality of the fact is sufficiently proved 
by its lasting and ascertained results. In cases where the 
weights and measures of two different nations are found to 
be in a precise and definite ratio one to the other — either 
exactly equal, or exact multiples and parts of each other — 
we may fairly presume, either that the one has borrowed 
from the other, or that each has borrowed from some com- 
mon source {MetroL c. ii. § 3). Where the ratio is in- 
accurate, or simply approximative, it is to be treated as 
accidental and undesigned. 

I request particular attention to this distinction between 
a precise ratio, and a ratio merely approximative, which 
M. Boeckh lays down very clearly, and which he justly 
announces as the cardinal principle of his metrological 
reasonings. To a great extent, he has succeeded in exhibiting 
an analogy, both interesting and hitherto unknown, between 
the metrical and statical systems of the various countries to 
which his work relates. But I must at the same time add, 
that there are several of his conclusions which appear to me 
very imperfectly supported, and some even which are not to 
be reconciled with the evidence. In a subject so obscure 
and perplexed from beginning to end, this is by no means 
wonderful. 

In investigating the subject of the ancient weights and 



' COINS, AND MEASURES. 139 

measures, in so far as they afford evidence of communion or 
analogous proceeding between the different nations of anti- 
quity, the great point to be attended to is the normal system 
as it was fixed by law, abstracting from those imperfections 
which attended the execution of it in detail. All mechanical 
processes in antiquity were carried on far more loosely and 
inaccurately than they are at present : pieces of money, as well 
as weights and measures, were both less durable and less exact, 
in spite of the solicitude of the ancient governments. We 
know by the evidence of inscriptions, with respect to Athens, 
that normal weights and measures were preserved under 
custody of a public officer in the chapel of the Hero Stephane- 
phorus; that copies of these were made and distributed for 
private use ; and that strict watch was directed to be kept 
for the purpose of excluding fraudulent or incorrect weights 
and measures in the shops and market.* The case was 
similar at Rome, and seemingly also at Jerusalem (Metrol. 
c. ii. § 3). In this manner the theoretical perfection of the 
standard was maintained in the minds of the people as it 
was when originally adopted, in spite of imperfect execution 
in practice. 

M. Boeckh enters upon his subject, in the third chapter of 
the work, by an investigation of the Eoman liquid measure, 
quadrantal or amphora, in its relation to the Roman pound 
weight. According to the Silian plebiscite, as reported by 
Festus, the legal definition of a quadrantal was, a vessel con- 
taining eighty pounds weight of wine or water : the congius 
being one-eighth part of it, and containing ten pounds weight 
of the same. By this regulation the dimensions of the 
vessels containing liquids were made dependent, not upon 
cubical measurement, but upon weight, like the imperial 
gallon in England. Now the Attic liquid measure called 
%o{)9, was the exact equivalent of the Eoman congius ; and 
the Attic fjL€Tp7]Tr}^, the largest unity of liquid measures at 
Athens, contained twelve %oe9, and was equivalent to one 



Boeckh, Corpus InscripL Grcecar. No. 123-150. 



140 EEYIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

and a half amphoraa, or quadrantalia. Such a definite ratio 
does undoubtedly indicate either some common original from 
which both'systems must have been deduced, or an imitation 
of one of them by the other. M. Boeckh seeks to deduce 
both one and the other from the East, where it will be pre- 
sently shewn that the Chaldaeans at Babylon had adopted 
in very early times a system of determining their cubic 
measures by ultimate reference to a given weight. 

" If," (he says, iii. 4. p. 26) " we regard this relation of the 
weights and measures, based upon a given weight of water, 
which is the keystone of the Eoman system, and if we carry 
the application of this water-weight backwards to the chief 
measures of the ancient world, we shall find a connection 
really and truly organic between the systems of the different 
people of antiquity, and we shall arrive at last at the funda- 
mental unity of weight and measure in the Babylonian 
system ; so that this supposition is found to be verified in 
all its consequences and details. To give some prelimi- 
nary intimation of this, I shall shew that the Grecian (or 
more accurately, the ^ginaean) and the Eoman pound are 
in the ratio 10:9; the ^^ginasan pound is half the ^ginsean 
mina ; but the cubical measures stood normally in the ratio of 
the weights ; and therefore the Grecian cubic foot was to the 
Eoman as 10 : 9 ; and as the Eoman cubic foot weighs eighty 
pounds of rain-water, so also the Grecian cubic foot weighs 
eighty Grecian or j3Egina3an pounds, equal to forty ^ginaean 
minse. The unity of weight (in Greece) however is, not forty 
minae, but sixty minae, or a talent. In the original institutions of 
the people of antiquity every thing has its reason, and we find 
scarcely any thing purely arbitrary : nevertheless, this unity 
of weight, the talent, does not coincide with the unity of 
measure — neither with the cubic foot, nor with any other 
specific cubical denomination. But the coincidence reveals 
itself at once, as soon as we discover that the Babylonian 
cubic foot, standing as it does in the ratio of 3 : 2 to the 
Grecian cubic foot, weighs sixty ^ginsean minae (=60 
Babylonian minae = 1 Babylonian talent) of raiii-water." 



COINS, AND MEASURES. 141 

M. Boeckh here promises more than his volume will be 
found to realise. He does, indeed, satisfactorily shew that 
the Babylonian talent w^as identical with, and was the 
original prototype of, the ^ginsean talent, and that the 
standard and scale of weight was strikingly and curiously 
similar in Asia, in Egypt, and in Greece. But he has not, 
I think, made out the like with regard to the Grecian 
measures, either of length or capacity, and his proof of the 
ratio of 3 : 2 between the Babylonian and the Grecian foot 
will be found altogether defective. Nor has he produced 
adequate evidence to demonstrate, either the ratio of 10 : 9 
between the Grecian or-Sjginsean pound and the Roman pound, 
or that of 1 :'2 between the ^ginsean pound and the ^Egi- 
naean mina ; the ratio between the Grecian cubic foot and the 
Roman cubic foot, too, as also that between the Grecian cubic 
foot and any given Grecian weight, is, as he proposes it, 
inadmissible. In fact, there is no such thing (properly 
speaking) as an ^ginsean pound weight ; nor is there any 
fixed normal relation between Grecian weight and Grecian 
measures, either of length or of capacity, though there is 
a fixed normal relation between Babylonian weight and 
Babylonian measures, as also between Roman weight and 
Roman measures. 

The Greek scale of weight consisted of the talent, the 
mina, the drachma, and the obolus : the talent consisting 
of 60 minae — the mina of 100 drachmae — the drachma of 
6 obols. The scale of weight in Sicily and Italy was essen- 
tially and originally different, having for its unit the pound 
— always divided into twelve ounces, except in central Italy, 
north of the Apennines, where it contained only ten ounces. 
These denominations were universal throughout Sicily and 
Italy, though the pound, in one part of Italy and another, 
was not the same absolute weight, any more than the talent 
in Greece. M. Boeckh, as well as all other writers on the 
subject, recognises this radical distinction between the Hel- 
lenic population on the one hand, and the earliest inha- 
bitants, both of Italy and Sicily, on the other, in respect, 



142 REVIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

both to the denomination and divisions, of the statical and 
monetary scale. And I may here remark, that the suppo- 
sition of identity of Pelasgian race between the original 
population of Epirus, and that of the south-eastern regions 
of Italy, announced with confidence by Niebuhr, and adopted 
by K. 0. Miiller, becomes open to doubt from our finding 
no mention of pound weight or ounce weights among the 
Epirots. The Corinthian colonies on the coast of Epirus — 
Leukas, Anaktorium, and Ambrakia, as w^ell as the island 
of Korkyra — pursued a system of coinage purely Hellenic, 
consisting of talents, minse, and drachmae. But the Co- 
rinthian colony of Syrakuse, as well as every other Hellenic 
establishment, either in Sicily or Italy, adopted a mixed 
system, in which talents, minae, and drachmae, were blended 
together with pounds and ounces, not according to any 
one uniform principle, but varying from town to town both 
in Italy and Sicily. The statical denominations prevalent 
among the Italian and Sicilian Greeks, arising as they do 
out of a compound of two systems originally distinct, present 
questions full of perplexity, and such as can hardly be solved 
with our existing stock of information. 

The words talent, drachma, and obolus, are genuine Greek, 
and of Grecian origin : the first of the three even occurs in 
Homer, though in a sense quite different from that which 
it subsequently bore in Greece; denoting, seemingly, a 
definite, but small, weight,* But the systematic graduation 



* Aristotle had said (ScJioL Ven, ad Iliad, xxiii. 269) that the 
talent in Homer was a weight altogether undefined. M. Boeekh 
agrees with him (Metrol, iv. 1. p. 33). But surely this opinion 
cannot be reconciled with the assertion that " Odysseus weighed 
out ten talents of gold " {Biad xix. 247 : 'Kpvaov Se o-rrjcras 'OSixrei^s 
Se/ca TvavTa rdXavTo) ; or even with the specification of a definite 
number of talents of gold — ten talents, two talents, &c. (Odyss, iv. 
526, and other passages cited in Damm's Lexicon), The word 
rdXavTov originally means a scale, as is well known, and is often so 
used by Homer, 
, In the Iliad and Odyssey, as well as in the Hesiodic Works and 



COINS, AND MEASUEES. 143 

of weights in Greece seems of a date later than the Odyssey ; 
and the word mna, or mina, which forms the central point 
of the scale, has no root in the Greek language. It is of 
Chaldaic origin, and has also been discovered by Cham- 
poUion among the ancient hieroglyphic writing of Egypt 
(Metrol, iv. 2. p. 39). The etymology of this word points 
to the quarter from whence the Greeks received their scale 
of weight: and it will be found that there is suflScient 
analogy between the scales adopted in Greece, Judaea, Phe- 
nicia, and Egypt, to warrant a belief that all of them were 
derived from one common origin — the Chaldaic priesthood 
at Babylon. We are told by Herodotus, that the Greeks 
adopted from the Babylonians the sun-dial, the gnomon, 
and the division of the day into twelve hours: and M. 
Boeckh, in one of the most learned sections of the Metrologie 
(iv. 4), has traced the diffusion of the worship of Mylitta, or 
Aphrodite Urania, original in Assyria, through the inter- 
mediation of the Phenicians, to Greece, Asia Minor, and 
Sicily. 

In the fifth chapter of his work, M. Boeckh investigates 
the value of the Babylonian talent-weight as compared with 
the Grecian. Herodotus, in his enumeration of the tribute- 
money paid by the various regions subject to the kings of 



Days, reference occurs to the chief measures of length and of area ; 
opyvia, 7rYJ)(y<;, 7roi)s, (nnOafjirj, Swpov, irXidpov, yvrj ; but no precise or 
definite measure of capacity is noticed in them ; fiirpov and d/x,^6- 
c^opcijs are of unknown bulk. But the scale of dry measure is at 
least as old as the Hesiodic poem called The Catalogue of Women, 
as we may ascertain by the occurrence of the word /xeSt/^T/os, which 
only belongs to the language as a technical denomination of 
measure. See the story of Mopsus and Kalchas, Hesiod op. Strah. 
xiv. p. 921 ; Fragm, ed. Gaisf. xiv. 

M-vpLOL elacv aptOfJiov' arap fxirpov ye fxiSifJivos* 

The word piihiixvo^ seems to belong to the same family as fxirpov, 
metior, which is said to be traceable to a Sanskrit root. (Curtius, 
Dg Nominum Grcecorum Formatione, Linguarum Gognatarum Batione 
hahitd, p. 48. Berlin, 1842.) 



144 REVIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

Persia, states that the greater number of them \yere directed 
to pay in silver, a given number of Babylonian talents ; while 
the Indians were required to pay in gold, a certain number 
of Euboic talents : and he then adds that the Babylonian 
talent was equivalent to 70 Euboic minsB (Herod, iii. 89). 
The total sums however, as Herodotus states them, do not 
precisely coincide with the items of his estimate ; but there 
is a confusion either in the calculations of the historian, or 
in the text, which cannot be rectified by the aid of our 
present MSS., and we are only enabled to see that the 
estimate of 70 Euboic minae is lower than the real value of 
the Babylonian talent. 

Two other statements are found, of the value of the latter : 
Pollux gives it at 70 Attic talents, JElian at 72 Attic talents. 
That the number 72 is more exact than 70, is a reasonable 
presumption : but if we attach to Attic talents the value of 
the Attic money talent as established by Solon, the three 
statements of Herodotus, Pollux, and ^lian, will become ab- 
solutely irreconcileable : for the Euboic talent was a weight 
decidedly and considerably larger than the Solonian Attic 
talent. But the three statements come into complete har- 
mony when we interpret the Attic talents, as stated by Pollux 
and -3Elian, to mean " great Attic talents," as they are called 
by Dardanus the ancient Metrologue ; that is, Attic talents 
as they stood before the reduction of Solon. It is ascer- 
tained not merely by the evidence of Dardanus, but by the 
still more incontrovertible testimony of a published Athenian 
inscription, that the '' great Athenian talent and mina " con- 
tinued in exclusive use at Athens, as weights, for several cen- 
turies after Solon — that the debasement introduced by that 
legislator applied only to the coins, drachmae, obols and 
their multiples, together with the mina and talent considered 
as pecuniary denominations apart from actual weight. The 
Attic mina and talent underwent, by the enactment of Solon, 
a change similar to that of the English pound during suc- 
cessive centuries. Our pound originally contained a full 
pound weight of standard silver, and its signification both as 



' COINS, AND MEASURES. ' 145 

money and as weight was identical; but in process of time 
the standard was lowered, and its pecuniary meaning was 
greatly changed, while its meaning as weight remained un- 
altered. We know by the evidence of the inscription above 
alluded to, that the mina as weight — the commercial mina, 
as it was formally denominated — was required to weigli 
138 Solonian standard drachmae : and it will be shewn pre- 
sently that its exact weight had originally been 138f of 
such drachmae. 

Construed in this verv rational and admissible sense, the 
three accounts of Herodotus, Pollux, and -3Elian, respecting 
the value of the Babylonian talent will be found concurrent. 
It is divided according to the common scale, viz. 60 minae, 
and 6000 drachmae of its own : and it is equivalent to 72 
Euboic minse each weighing 138| Solonian standard drachmae. 
In other words, it is equivalent to 10,000 of these Solonian 
drachmae ; the precise value of the ^^ginaean talent, ac- 
cording to the express announcement of Pollux, being in the 
■proportion of 5 : 3 to the Solonian standard. Calculating 
by this proportion, the standard weight of a Babylonian or 
^ginaean drachma (the 6000th part of a Babylonian or 
^ginaean talent) ought to be 112.295 English grains Troy. 
We are hardly entitled to expect any remaining actual coins 
to be of full standard weight, since almost every state in 
antiquity coined below its own standard, even when the 
standard continued legally unchanged ; and we must allow 
besides for loss arising from wear and tear. But it is re- 
markable that the Persian silver darics, now in the British 
Museum, adjusted as they doubtless were to the Babylonian 
scale by which the silver tribute was measured, do exhibit a 
weight of 224 English grains troy, or a little above — nearly 
the exact weight which they ought to have as Babylonian 
or ^ginaean didrachms. 

In the sixth chapter of his work, M. Boeckh enters into 
an elaborate examination of the Hebraic, Phenician, and 
Syrian system of weight and money : and he establishes on 
probable grounds, that the scale followed in these countries 

L 



14:6 REVIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

even from very early times, agreed with and was borrowed 
from the Babylonian.. The Hebraic talent had 60 minae, 
and 3000 holy shekels or didrachms : of the latter, the best 
and heaviest specimens now remaining approach so very 
near to the normal weight of the Babylonian or ^ginaean 
didrachma, that we may confidently reckon them as having 
been originally the same (c. vi. § 3). It appears however, 
that the subordinate divisions of the Hebraic scale were not 
coincident with those of the ^giuaean, which portioned the 
drachma into 6 obols : the Hebraic holv shekel or didrachm 
was divided into 20 gera, and the common shekel or drachma 
(the half of the holy shekel) into 10 gera : thus rendering a 
gera the equivalent of an Attic obolus (vi. 3 and vi. 5). 
M. Boeckh gives, in c. vi. § 7, the weight of a number of 
different coins, some of various Syrian kings, others of the 
Phenician cities. The heaviest and least worn amon2:st them 
come so near to the normal wei^'ht of the ^srinaean didrachm 
as to authorise the conclusion that they were intended to 
conform to it : and there are several conformable coins, 
belonging to the Sicilian city of Panormus, which raise an 
inference that the same standard of weight and money had 
passed from Tyre to its colony Carthage. 

That both the Euboic talent with its subdivisions, and the 
Babylonian talent with its subdivisions, were in use through- 
out the Persian empire, is proved by the fact that the 
tributes to government were required to be paid in them. 
I may remark however, that it is very doubtful whether the 
Persian tribute was paid in coined money. Herodotus tells 
us, that it was the practice of the great king's officers to 
melt the silver and gold which they received in payment of 
tribute, and to pour it into large earthenware jars : as soon 
as the metal cooled, the jars were broken : portions were 
then detached from the mass when there was occasion to 
make disbursements. * We know farther from the same his- 



* Herod, iii. 96. Tovtov t6v (f>6pov Brjcravpit^^i 6 fSacnXevs rpoiria 
TOtwSc. 'Es TTiOovs K£pafjiLVovs TT^fas KaTcy^cet' TrXTycras dk to dyyo<;, 
Trepiaipiu tov Kepajxov cTrcav Se SerjOy ^pr)fxdT(Jiv^ /cara/coTrret toctovto 
ocTov a^ iKaarOTe hajrai. 



i 



COINS, AND MEASURES. 147 

torian, that the gold and silver in the treasury of Kroesus 
was principally, if not entirely uncoined.* There could be 
no advantage in receiving coin when it was destined to 
be melted : moreover, the coins, which the great king might 
receive at one extremity of his large empire^ would be un- 
suitable for payments at the other extremity, or even at the 
centre. The object of the requisition was a given weight of 
fine metal; weighed according ta the Euboic, or smaller 
talent, for the gold ; according to the Babylonian, or larger 
talent, for the silver. I shall have occasion to revert to 
this point, which I do not find noticed by M. Boeckh, when 
I come to speak of the conventions between Antiochus and 
the Romans. 

Both the Babylonian and the Euboic scale of weight passed 
from Asia, probably through the medium of Phenicians, into 
Greece : the former being adopted principally in Pelopon- 
nesus and the Dorian states, in Boeotia, Pholxis, Thessaly, 
Makedonia, and Krete. M. Boeckh adds Achaia to the list : 
but the passage of Hesychius, on which he relies, is obscure 
and unsatisfactory .t The conventions between Athens, Argos, 
Elis, and Mantineia, in the Peloponnesian war, respecting 
the pay of troops, were stipulated in iEginsean drachmae 
and trioboli ; and the reckoning of the assembled Amphik- 
tyonic council was carried on in ^ginaean staters or di- 
drachms.J There may possibly have been other scales in 
some Grecian cities not coinciding either with the ^ginaean, 
the Euboic, or the Attic : but we have no distinct infor- 
mation concerning any such. The coins now remaining, of 
those Grecian states which followed the ^ginaean standard, 



* Herod, vi. 125. 

•j* Hesych. Trax^ty SpaxfJf^rj- to SiSpaxj^ov 'A^atot. When the Achaean 
confederacy first established itself extensively in Peloponnesus, the 
cities composing it were bound by a special resolution to use the 
same weights and measures and coins. Polyb. ii. 37. 

f Thukyd. v. 47 ; also Xenoph. Eellen, v. 2, 21. Boeckh, Corp. 
Inscrip. Grcecarum, No. 1688. 

L 2 



148 REVIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

do not exhibit a full proportion of 5 : 3 between the iEginaean 
and the Attic drachma ; their actual weight falls decidedly 
below it. On the ground of this inferior weight, Mr. Hussey, 
in his instructive Treatise on the Ancient Weights and Measures, 
disputes the correctness of Pollux, in giving the proportion 
of 5 : 3, a statement hitherto universally admitted, and which 
M. Boeckh successfully vindicates. That states which pro- 
fessed to follow the jiEginsean scale, should nevertheless coin 
a degraded money, is by no means astonishing, nor does the 
fact furnish any reason for questioning the proportions an- 
nounced to us as normally belonging to the scale. Of the 
various Grreek states which professed to follow the same 
standard, some coined better money, others worse, according 
to circumstances : the general tendency amongst them, as it 
has been in modern no less than in ancient times, was to 
lower continuallv the value of their coins, and never ao:ain to 
raise it. The Athenian mint maintained the integrity of its 
coinage, from Solon downward, longer than the rest ; but we 
may perfectly well admit — as it is stated by K. 0. MuUer, no 
less than by Mr. Hussey, that the ^ginaean didrachm, as it 
was actually coined in Peloponnesus during the Pelopon- 
nesian war, had become so lowered as only to be worth 1^ 
Attic didrachm — without discarding the belief, that the 
JEginaean scale, as first introduced and applied, placed these 
two coins in the ratio of 5 : 3. M. Boeckh produces positive 
evidence that such w^as actually the fact, from the still 
remaining coins of Melos and Byzantium ; both of them 
Dorian settlements, and oue a colony of Spaita. Very an- 
cient coins are found of both these cities, exhibiting the full 
weight of the jSEginaean standard, with a deduction alto- 
gether insignificant ; and there is every reason to conclude 
that these states must have derived their scale of. coinage 
from their mother cities in Greece Proper, maintaining it 
faithfully in practice even after the latter had silently re- 
ceded from it. The coins of the Makedonian kings, anterior 
to Alexander the Great — those of the Bisaltse and those of 
the Chalkideans in Thrake — exhibit in like manner very 



COINS, AND MEASUEES. 149 

nearly the full ^ginsean standard weight. Either these are 
to be taken as examples of the genuine, undegraded ^ginaean 
standard, and as authenticating the proportion which Pollux 
gives us, of 5 : 3 between that standard and the Solonian 
Attic: or else they must be taken as instances of some 
other monetary scale heavier than the ^ginsean ; w^hich is 
unsupported by any evidence, and contrary to all pro- 
babilitv. 

Respecting the Euboic talent, the opinion which M. 
Boeckh now maintains, that it is identical with the ante- 
Solonian Attic talent, is supported by the approximative 
weight of many actual coins, as well as by strong indirect 
evidence ; the adoption of it introducing a high degree of 
symmetry into the systems of Grecian coinage. In his 
FuUic Economy of Athens, our author had treated the Euboic 
talent as closely approximating to the Attic talent introduced 
by Solon, but he has since seen reason to alter his judgment. 

We know the value of the Solonian Attic talent, as well 
as the extent of depreciation which Solon introduced : we 
know^, therefore, that the talent, as it stood before his de- 
preciation, was considerably less than the ^ginsean talent. 
Apart from the Solonian Attic, the -zEginsean and the Euboic 
are the only scales of which w^e find any mention throughout 
Greece Proper, in the earlier periods of Grecian history : the 
scale prevalent at Athens w^as not the ^ginsean ; and there 
is presumption, both negative and positive, that the Euboic, 
which derived its name from the Ionic cities of Euboea, and 
which we know to have lasted for many centuries after- 
wards in the Ionic city of Priene* in Asia Minor, was also 
adopted in tlie metropolis of the Ionic race, just as the 
chief seat of the iEginsean scale was among the cities of 
Dorian race. 

* Boeckh, Corp, Inscript. Groecar, No. 2906. Dioskurides pro- 
mises, to each of the persons going through their training in the 
gymnasium, an Euboic mina of beef : j^o^iov Kpeuys fjuvav Ev/SolktJv. 
I do not perceive that M. Boeckh has referred to this in his 
Metrologie, 



150 EEYIEW OF BOECKH OX ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

Admitting the Euboic talent to have been that which ex- 
isted at Athens down to the legislation of Solon, it stood to 
the ^ginsean talent in the ratio of 5 : 6, and to the Solonian 
talent in the ratio of 25 : 18 : the drachma belonging to it 
being of the Aveight of 93.5 English grains. And this 
weight is, to a considerable degree, borne out by the re- 
maining coins of various cities in Euboea, as well as by those 
of the Chalkidic cities of Ehegium in Italy, and Naxos in 
Sicily {Metrol yiii. 3, 4). 

In the ninth chapter of the Metrologie, M. Boeckh inves- 
tigates the proceeding of Solon in respect to the Athenian 
moneys, and establishes upon grounds, very sufficient and 
satisfactory, the extent of depreciation which he introduced. 
He supposes, with much probability, that the precise point 
to which Solon carried his depreciation was determined by 
the definite and simple ratio which he desired to establish 
with the ^ginaean talent. At that early time, in all pro- 
bability, the latter was really adhered to in practice by the 
PelojDonnesian and other states around, which it ceased to 
be afterwards. The ratio of the ^ginsean to the Euboic 
or ante-Solonian talent was as 6 : 5 ; to the Attic talent 
established by Solon, as 5 : 3. The ratio of the Euboic to 
the Attic talent was as 25 : 18. 

The Attic monetary standard as established by Solon was 
the lowest then known in Greece, but it was at the same 
time faithfully adhered to by the Athenian mint, to a 
degree at that time very unusual. Partly from the general 
tendency to substitute a low standard in place of a high 
one, partly from the ascendency subsequently acquired by 
Athens, the Attic standard became extensively diffused 
throughout Greece as well as Sicily and Asia Minor. M. 
Boeckh seems to be of opinion, that the Solonian Attic 
talent was originally co-existent in Asia along with the 
^^ginsean and Euboic talent : but for this there seems little 
evidence. 

Eespecting the Egyptian scale of weight and money, of 
which M. Boeckh treats in his tenth chapter, there is no 



COINS, AND MEASUEES. 151 

information anterior to the time of the Ptolemies ; no coins 
have been found of an earlier date, nor does it appear that 
any earlier Egyptian coins were ever struck. The coins of 
the Ptolemies now remaining conform very nearly to the 
^ginaean or Babylonian scale of weight : they are prin- 
cipally tetradrachms and didrachms adapted to the weight 
of the jEginsean talent : and the reason why they were so 
was, in all probability, that the first Ptolemy adopted that 
scale of weight which he found already current in Egypt. 
For the tendency throughout Greece during the preceding 
century had been to discontinue the ^ginaean scale in 
coinage, and to adopt the Attic ; and Alexander the Great 
had recently introduced this change into the Matedonian 
coinage. There is therefore a strong presumption that 
the scale of weight current in Egypt in the earlier times 
was the Babylonian or ^ginaean. Gradually this standard 
became degraded in practice and abandoned, in Egypt as 
well as elsewhere : the name drachma at the time when 
that country passed from its native kings to the formal 
dominion of the Komans, was given to a coin equivalent 
only to the Roman denarius and the Attic drachma of the 
same period : but the time and manner in which this change 
was brought about, cannot be clearly made out. 

Such is the extensive and interesting analogy which M. 
Boeckh has established between the units and scale of 
weight, and the monetary scales founded upon them, 
throughout the various portions of the Hellenic and Oriental 
world : and such is the relation, which he has been the first 
to set forth clearly, between the three principal monetary 
scales prevalent in Greece — the ^ginsean, the Euboic, and 
the Attic. Of the copious collection of particular facts, 
and the luminous reasonings by which his conclusions are 
sustained, I cannot, in the present short paper, pretend to 
give any adequate idea. I now pass to other points on which 
he has not been equally successful. 

He lays it down (Metrol, ix. 2. p. 122) as a ratio both 
certain and precise, that the Eoman pound was f of the 



152 REVIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

Attic mina of 100 Solonian standard drachmae : and this 
ratio he cites frequently in the course of his work, appealing 
to it as a means of establishing numerous ulterior con- 
clusions. But the proof upon which it rests is neither 
adequate nor convincing. First, he refers to the stipulation 
in the treaty between the Eomans and the Asiatic king, 
Antiochus. During the first negociations carried on by the 
Eomans with that defeated prince, they required that he 
should pay them 15,000 Euboic talents, by stated instal- 
ments (Polyb. xxi. 14) : but in the second negociations, or 
linal and amended treaty, the conditions stood as follows — 
^Apyvplov Se Sorco A.vtlo^o^ ^Attlkov Vcofxaioi^ apicrrov 
ToXavra 12,000, ev ereau 12, hihov^ Ka6^ eKaarov eVo? 'X^iKia* 
/jL7] eXarrov Se eX/cerco to rakavrov Xcrpcbv 'Pco/jial/ccop 80. 
(Polyb. xxii. 2(5). Antiochus engages to pay to the Eomans 
12,000 talents of the finest Attic silver, each talent to weigh 
not less than 80 Eonian pounds. Because Attic silver is 
here specified, M. Boeckh contends that no other can be 
meant than Attic talents : but this is an unfounded infer- 
ence, as we may see by examining the treaty concluded a 
short time before, between the Eomans and iEtolians, 
wherein the latter thus covenant— Aorwcraz^ Se AlrcoXol 
apyvplov 1X7] 'y^€Lpovo<; ^Attlkov, irapa^prjfjia fiev rakavra 
FiV^oLKa 200 TM arpaTTjya) too ev rfj 'EXXaSr dvrl rplrou 
jjbepov^ Tov apyvplov ')(^pvaLov, eav ^ovXcovrai, StSoz/T€9, tmv 
BeKa /jLvcov apyvplov, j(^pualov /xvav SldovT€<;. (Polyb. xxii. 
15). Here we find an engagement to pay 200 Euboic 
talents of fau' Attic silver : thus evincing that the mention 
of '' the lest Attic silver," in the treaty with Antiochus, neither 
implies any reference to Attic talents, nor sustains the 
inference which M. Boeckh builds upon it, viz., the normal 
ratio 60 : 80 between the Eoman pound and the Solonian 
Attic talent.* 



* 



Livy, in reciting the treaty between the Eomans and Antiochus, 
gives the sum— " Argenti probi 12,000 Attica talenta— talentum ne 
minus pondo octoginta Romanis ponderibus pendat " (xxxviii. 38). 



COINS, AND MEASUKES. 153 

To me there appears something anomalous in defining a 
recognised Grecian metallic standard by a given weight in 
Roman pounds : and, accordingly, we find in the other 
treaties that vvhen the Euboic standard is specified, no 
mention is made of Roman pounds, nor of any foreign 
weight. The fact, that in this final treaty with Antiochus, 
all specification of a Grecian standard is omitted, and a 
standard composed of Roman pounds substituted in its 
place, seems to me to indicate that the talent, so defined, 
was a mere denomination of weight, chosen for the occasion 
- — ^not identified with any known Grecian system, though 
approximating to the Attic talent. It is to be remembered, 
that what the Romans wanted, was, not Grecian coins, but 
Grecian silver of a given weight and fineness : this is shown 
by the stress laid upon the quality of the silver — "fair Attic 
silver " — " the hest Attic silver T When, in their first nego- 
ciations, they required Antiochus to pay 15,000 Euboic 
talents, or, when they demanded from Carthage 10,000 
Euboic talents (Polyb. xy. 7), they could not have meant to 
insist upon receiving that enormous sum in didrachms and 
tetradrachms of the Euboic scale : such coins, if brought to 
Rome, must be melted and re- coined before they could be 
made available. The essential object with them, was to 
define the weight of silver to be paid to them, and a 
definition by Roman pounds would be most easily acted 
upon by Roman commissioners. The word talent was re- 
ceived in many different senses, in Sicily, Italy, and Greece : 
a special meaning was put upon it for this particular oc- 
casion : just as, in any payment required to be made from 



But this, I conceive, is not to be attended to, when we have before 
us the far higher authority as well as the much more specific state- 
ment of Polybius. When Livy recites the former treaty with the 
u^tolians, he describes the sum to be paid simply as Euhoica talenta, 
without any regard to the additional words of Polybius, apyvpiov /jltj 
Xctpovos 'Arrt/cov ; which words, nevertheless, are essential to the 
comprehension of the mode and form in which the payment was to 
be made (xxxviii, 9). 



154 EEVIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

England to America, an arbitrary rate of exchange, not 
widely removed from the ordinary rate, might be determined 
beforehand between the pound sterling and the dollar. 

The only other testimony adduced by M. Boeckh, of the 
alleged exact ratio of the Eoman pound and the Attic 
Solonian mina (3 : 4), is contained in a sentence of the 
Metrologiis of the Benedictine Andlekta; in the interpreta- 
tion of which he assumes as certain, what is at best doubtful, 
that ^ArTLKa^; Spa^/xa?, in the language of so very late a 
writer, means standard Solonian drachmae. But even if we 
grant this assumption, the evidentiary force of the passage 
will still remain very disputable. For there are several 
statements in the other metrological writers (see Galen, 
Dioskorides and Kleopatra, as printed in Stephens's Thesaurus, 
besides Priscian cle Ponderihus, v. 33), distinctly contra- 
dicting it, and announcing other proportions; and M. 
Boeckh has shewn no reason wliy they should all be set 
aside, and the authority of the Benedictine Analehta ex- 
clusively trusted. It is true that there is much contradiction 
and discrepancy in their various statements of the ratio 
between mina, drachma, libra, and uncia (Metrol. p. 116- 
120) ; but the reasonable inference, even from this irrecon- 
cileable confusion, is, that the two scales of weight were in 
the beginning radically distinct, having no point of actual 
contact, and no exact or normal ratio between them. If, as 
M. Boeckh supposes, there had been a normal and original 
correspondence between the two scales, in the proportion of 
60 minae, or 1 Solonian talent to 80 Eoman pounds, would 
not this fact have been intimated by Pliny or by Celsus ? 
Both of these authors treat the Attic drachma as the equi- 
valent of the denarius, 84 to the Eoman pound : they con- 
sider the Attic mina as 100 : 84, in reference to the Eoman 
pound. Now this was nothing more than an approximative 
ratio first derived from the comparison of the degraded 
coinage of both states ; and if M. Boeckh's supposition be 
correct, it must have superseded the ancient, precise normal 
ratio of 100 : 75, which must have been as well known as 



COINS, AND MEASUKES. 155 

the ratio of the Attic x^^^ ^^^ fierpTJTTj^; to the Roman 
congius and amphora. The silence of Pliny and Celsus is to 
me a strong reason for believing that no such exact propor- 
tion between the Attic mina and the Roman pound originally 
existed. And this contradictory evidence, positive as well 
as negative, of which M. Boeckh takes little notice, appears 
to me to outweigh the unsupported testimony of the Bene- 
dictine Metrologiis. 

Wurm in his treatise {Be Ponderum, Nummorum, &g. 
Rationibus ap, Bomanos et Qrsecos : Stuttgard, 1821) adopts 
the same view as M. Boeckh in regard to the treaty between 
the Romans and Antiochus: he considers it certain that 
exact xlttic talents and nothing else, must be meant : and 
he says, " Sequitur in his presse Livius Polybium : " which 
is not correct, since in the very cardinal point of the ques- 
tion, in the specification of '^ Attica talenta," JLivy departs 
from Polybius. Wurm also agrees with M. Boeckh in setting 
aside the dissentient testimonies of the later metrological 
writers. But the general scope of Wurm's book is not the 
same with that of M. Boeckh : the former professes only to 
exhibit the actual relative weight, as nearly as it can be 
found, of Attic talents, and Roman pounds : and for this pur- 
pose we have evidence enough in the coins, without any appeal 
to the treaty above mentioned. The number of Attic coins 
still remaining is quite sufficient to enable us to determine 
approximatively, with sufficient accuracy for practical pur- 
poses, the standard weight of the Solonian drachma: the 
result of very numerous particular trials brings it to 67.37 
grains Troy, according to M. Boeckh : to 66.6, according to 
Mr. Hussey. One Attic talent, or 6000 of these drachmae, 
is nearly equal in weight to 80 Roman pounds : and there- 
fore the ratio of 3 : 4 between the Roman pound and the 
Attic mina, if stated simply as a tolerably near approach 
to the truth, is one which I am by no means disposed to 
question. 

But this is not sufficient for M. Boeckh's argument, which 
requires a rigid distinction between precise ratios and ap- 



156 KEYIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

proximative ratios. For the latter, as he himself justly lays 
it doAvn, are to be regarded as merely accidental and unde- 
signed : while the former carry with them evidence of sys- 
tematic and intentional harmony between the two scales 
compared — of original relationship either in the way of fili- 
ation or in that of fraternity. M. Boeckh is thus compelled 
to maintain a position much more difficult than that of 
Wurm : he undertakes to demonstrate that the ratio of 3 : 4 
between the Eoman pound and the Attic mina is mathe- 
matically exact, being involved in the normal schemes of 
the two systems ; and he dwells upon it as a capital point 
of original and intentional contact between. them. It is in 
this light that he considers it, in very many passages of 
his book, when he treats it as a matter proved, and appeals 
to it confidently as a ground for farther inferences : it is in 
this light that I consider it also, when I maintain that he 
has produced no sufficient evidence to entitle him to do so. 

To point out an instance of his employment of this very 
problematical ratio as an ascertained premise in ulterior 
reasoning, we need only pass to the 17th chapter, in which 
he proposes to establish " the deduction of the Eoman cubic 
foot and foot of length, from the ^ginsean weight and the 
Grecian cubic measure, and the intentional ratio of the 
Roman foot to the Grecian foot, as the cube root of 9 to 
the cube root of 10 ; ^^9 : ^10 " (p. 284). He first seeks 
to prove that ''the Grecian (or more properly speaking, the 
^ginsean) pound is to the Eoman pound as 10 : 9:" next, 
that the Grecian cubic foot is to the Roman cubic foot in the 
same ratio — 10 : 9 ; and his argument proceeds as follows 
(p. 285) : 

*^ It is a matter of fact that the Eoman pound is to the 
half of the -^o-insean mina as 9 : 10 ; for it (viz. the Eoman 
pound) is to the Attic mina as 3:4; and the Attic mina 
is to the ^ginsean mina as 3:5, consequently the Eoman 
pound is to the ^ginaean mina as 9 : 20, or to the half 
of the ^ginsean mina as 9 : 10. But this half ^ginaean 
mina was a pound, as will be shewn hereafter : it is therefore 



COllSrS, AND MEASURES. 157 

demonstrated, that the ^gineean and the Eoman pound were 
in the ratio of 10 : 9. It remains still to demonstrate, that 
the Olympic cubic foot, and the Eoman quadrantal, stood 
in the same relation ; but this cannot be done with equal 
strictness." Unable to offer a strict proof of this ratio of 
10 : 9 between the Grecian cubic foot and the Eoman quad- 
rantal, M. Boeckh gives some general considerations in the 
way of indirect evidence, and he here again puts in the front 
rank the Drecise ratio between the Grecian and Eoman 

A. 

pound which he supposes himself to have just before demon- 
strated. *' We acknowledge a complete coincidence of the 
Grecian and Eoman pound in the ratio of 10 : 9, which 
implies that the latter was originally adapted to the standard 
of the former" (p. 286). Here we see that he is dealing 
not with simple approximations, leaving a certain amount 
of practical error, but with exact coincidences, involved in 
the normal schemes of the two systems, and shewing that 
the framers of the one have adjusted their arrangements 
with a view to the other. And the whole of his proof of 
systematic analogy between the Eoman and Grecian scales 
of weight, rests upon the admission of an exact ratio of 3 : 4 
between the Eoman pound and the Solonian mina ; which 
I have already shewn to be uncertain and unattested. 

Another point which M. Boeckh includes as established, in 
the demonstration which I have cited just above, is, that the 
j^ginaean mina contained two iEginaean litrso or pounds. 
When we turn to the chapters in which he assigns his evi- 
dence for this, it will appear very inconclusive (xix. 1. p. 303 ; 
xxiv. 2. p. 343). The j^Eginaean scale of weight consisted of 
talents, minae, drachmae, and oboli : it had no pounds nor 
ounces. When the Greek colonies settled in Sicily, they 
found a copper currency among the Sikel population, and 
an independent scale of weight consisting of pounds and 
ounces, with which their own became blended. The result 
is highly perplexing, and in many points not intelligible, 
for want of evidence : but we know, and M. Boeckh has very 
clearly shewn in opposition to the opinion of Bentley and 



158 REVIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

others, that the Sicilian talent contained 120 litrae in money 
value, and therefore that one Sicilian mina contained two 
litrae in money value. We know also from x\ristotle that 
the Sicilian litra was equal in value to an ^ginaean obolus 
of silver, which was therefore in Sicily called a silver litra. 
But it is nowhere shewn that the Sicilian talent containing 
120 litrae in value was of the weight of an ^ginaean talent : 
nor that the tveight called a litra in Sicily was -rro'tli part 
of the iveight called a Sicilian talent ; much less, of an ^gi- 
naean talent. At the time when the identitv of meanino^ 
between litra and obolus first took its rise, the litra con- 
tained a quantity of copper such as could be purchased in 
the market for an ^ginaean obolus : that this quantity of 
copper was in weight precisely the -ri-o^l^ P^^^ ^f ^^ jiEgi- 
naean talent weight, is certainly not very probable, and not 
to be admitted without some j)ositive proof. And M. Boeckh 
himself appears only to contend that the ratio was some- 
thing originally not very far from the truth (see xxiv. 2 
p. 343) ; so that it is altogether impossible to rely upon it 
as evidence of original and intrinsic relationship between 
the Eoman and the ^ginaean pound, even if we consider the 
expression ^giiidean i^ound as admissible. 

I now come to the ratio which M. Boeckh alleo-es to have 
subsisted between the Olympic cubic foot, and the Roman 
cubic foot or quadrantal — as 10 : 9. Of this he has himself 
stated (see the passage already cited from p. 285) that he is 
unable to offer sufficient direct proof : and the general con- 
siderations into which he enters (pp. 286, 287) will not be 
found to compensate for the absence of such proof. Yet he 
introduces in other places this unproved ratio for the purpose 
of establishing ulterior conclusions : for example in p. 277 
(xv. 2) he says : '' The Attic metretes contains 72 Roman 
sextarii : but the Greek cubic foot is, as will be hereafter 
shewn, y of the Roman quadrantal, which contains 48 
sextarii : the Greek cubic foot is therefore 53-^ sextarii, and 
the Attic metretes f ^ of the Greek cubic foot." Here are 
two new conclusions, the authority of which rests entirely 



COINS, AND MEASURES, 159 

* 

upon the admission of the ratio of 10 : 9 between the Greek 
cubic foot and the Eoman quadrantal, which M. Boeckh 
believes himself to have proved, but has not proved : and 
again these two new conclusions — the equality of the Greek 
cubic foot to 534- Eoman sextarii, and the ratio of the same 
to the Attic metretes, as 20 : 27 — appear in other parts of 
his volume as if they too were matters ascertained (see xiii. 
7. p. 242 ; xiv. 3. p. 263 ; xvL 2. p. 282). In researches 
such as these of M. Boeckh, unless the fundamental posi- 
tions are placed beyond all doubt, the subsequent deductions 
become illusory, and are but too well calculated to illustrate 
the impressive warning, which he has himself delivered in 
his preface, against fine-spun metrological hypotheses. 

The well-known correspondence between the Attic mea- 
sures of capacity, both liquid and dry, and the Eoman 
measures of capacity — both as to positive quantities and 
scale of division — is a fact very striking and remarkable. 
Now the Eoman measures of capacity exhibit an exact pro- 
portion with the Eoman weights : an amphora or quadrantal 
weighing precisely 80 Eoman pounds, and a congius (the 
parallel both in quantity and denomination of the Attic 
%ou9) weighing precisely 10 pounds. This correspondence, 
a fact certain but hitherto unexplained, M. Boeckh wishes 
to trace to a supposed original correspondence of the scale 
of weio-ht, transmitted from Babvlon first to Greece and 
then to Eome : the cubical unit being in all the three cases 
(he asserts) determined by a given weight of rain-water (see 
pp. 286, 287). I have already said that his deduction of 
the j^ginaean scale of weight from the Babylonian appears 
to me sufficiently sustained, and the light which he has 
thereby thrown upon the statical systems, both of Greece 
and the East, is new and valuable. But in extending the 
same deduction to Eome — in tracing the acknowledged cor- 
respondence of Eoman and Attic cubical measures to a pri- 
mitive correspondence of Eoman and Attic weights, — he has, 
in my judgment, altogether failed. I am the more anxious 
to point this out, because his copious erudition may perhaps 



160 REVIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

enable him either to strengtlien his proof, or to discover 
some better mode of explanation : and I am very siKe that 
there is no man in Europe more capable of solvinn^ a 
problem at once so difficult and so interesting to philological 
enquirers. 

I pass over M. Boeckh's remarks on the relation of the 
Gnrecian and Eoman foot of length: his eleventh chapter 
contains ample particulars as to the actual length both of 
one and the other, but his attempt to connect them in 
theory, as if the Eoman foot had been originally adapted to 
the Grecian in the ratio of 2-i : 25, is an hypothesis resting 
upon unsupported analogies (compare xi. 8. p. 199 ; and xvii. 
2, 3, 4. pp. 288-292). I come to the positions which he 
lays down, respecting the relation of Grecian weights and 
measures one with another : wherein I discover much which 
appears to me erroneous and illusory. 

It has been alreadv mentioned that there exists in the 
Eoman system, a precise, determinate connection between 
the weights and the cubic measures : the amphora or quad- 
rantal weighing by legal standard 80 pounds ; and the 
congius ( = Attic x^^^) ^^'^ighing 10 pounds. ISTow^ M. Boeckli 
thinks tliat he can establish the like precise and determinate 
connection between the Grecian weights and Grecian cubic 
measures. The Eoman amphora contains 48 sextarii, the 
Attic metretes 72 sextarii : the former weio-hs 80 Eoman 
pounds, therefore the latter weighs 120 Eoman pounds : but 
the Eomcm pound is | of the Attic mina : therefore the Attic 
metretes weighs 90 Attic minae or 1-J- Attic talent : or in 
other words, the Solonian talent is equal to a weight of 
water § of the Attic metretes (xv. 2. p. 278). 

Such is ]M. Boeckh's proof of the exact and determinate 
connection between the Grecian weights and Grecian cubic 
measures. And here again we see that the w^hole cogency 
of the proof depends upon the admission, that the Eoman 
pound is f of the Solonian mina : and that the ratio between 
them is rigorous, numerical, aud essentially belonging to 
the two systems ; not simply approximative. In such pre- 



COINS, AND MEASURES. 161 

liminary admissions no inquirer can acquiesce, as I have 
already endeavoured to shew, until ampler evidence is pro- 
duced than that which is contained in the Metrologie. 

Nor is this the only defective point in the book respecting 
the Grecian cubic measures. It is a recognised fact, that 
in the Solonian Attic scale the monetary talent, mina, and 
drachma, are each f of the respective denominations in the 
-ZEginsean scale : M. Boeckh has attempted to shew that the 
same ratio prevails between the cubic measures of the two 
scales ; that the Solonian Attic metretes and medimnus are 
each 4 of the j$]ginaean. The evidence in support of this 
position is really so feeble that I cannot explain to myself 
how it should have appeared to him satisfactory. First 
(Metrol, XV. 1. p. 275), he cites a passage from Lucian, which 
proves only, at the very most, that the ^ginsean medimnus 
was larger than other measures of the same denomina- 
tion; if indeed it proves anything to the point, of which 
reasonable doubt may be entertained (Lucian, Timon, c. 57). 
Next, he quotes a passage out of the Etymologihon Magnum, 
V, Alyivaca, 'EXeyero Se ra /JueyaXa, Alytvata, dirb rov 
vo /Ji [a /iiaTO<;' koI yap to Klyivalov raXavJOV TrXelov rjSvparo 
Tov 'Attlkov; sl citation which not only does not assist 
M. Boeckh's conclusion, but operates powerfully to contradict 
it ; and so sensible is he of this, that he permits himself to 
discredit his own witness, by annexing as a criticism of his 
own — " Since the jEginaean money was more notorious than 
the jiEginaean measures, the incorrect limitation is added, airo 
TOV vo/jLi(T/jiaTo<;, &c." Accepting the statement of the 
witness, I must reject M. Boeckh's unfounded semi-negation 
of it. Thirdly, he produces in juxtaposition two distinct 
testimonies with regard to the contributions to the public 
meals at Sparta. Plutarch says, that every partaker of 
these public meals contributed monthly a medimnus of 
barley-meal, eight choes of wine, five minae of cheese, and 
two and a half minee of figs (Plutarch. Lykurg. 12). But 
Diksearchus (aj;. Athen, iv. p. 141) states that each person 
contributed to these same meals near upon one Attic me- 

M 



162 EEVIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

dimnus and a half, and some eleven or twelve choes of wine, 
besides a certain weight of cheese and figs : moreover, for 
the purchase of condiment, about ten ^ginaean oboli 
(aXcf^LToov fiev o)^ rpla fjuaXLcrra rj/jLL/jieSL/jiva ^Attlkol, oIlvov 
Se %oa9 evZeKCL nva fj ScoSeKa, &c.). Now, before we can 
combine these two passages, to draw any inference from 
them as to the relative value of ^ginaean and Attic 
measures, we must adopt several assumptions, each of which 
is liable to more or less of doubt. First, we must assume 
that Plutarch and Diksearchus both speak of the same period, 
and had in their minds the same actual quantities of meal 
and wine. Secondly, that Plutarch meant an Mginaean 
medimnus, and ^giuBean choes ; for he says no such thing. 
Thirdly, that Diksearchus speaks of a monthly contribution, 
and not of any different period : for he specifies no time, 
whereas, Plutarch specifies a month. And fourthly, that 
Dikaearchus had heard of and intended to designate some 
known and definite quantity ; for his words, in their obvious 
meaning, imply that he did not himself accurately know, or 
that no precise weight was even fixed by law. And when 
we have taken all these matters for granted, what is the 
inference wdiich the two passages combined present ? Some- 
thing quite foreign to M. Boeckh's purpose ; I will state it 
in his own words : — '' Dikaearchus therefore (he says Theo- 
phrastus, by an oversight) estimated the Lakonian measure 
as something less than IJ of the Attic. This doubtless 
coincides in some measure with that value of the jiEginsean 
talent which Hussey had elicited from the coins, something 
above 1^ of the Attic : but that was merely a value of coins 
which no longer corresponded with their original standard ; 
and I have sufficiently proved that the ^Eginsean talent, as 
weight, stood to the Attic in the ratio of 5 : 3. Even without 
any closer historical testimony, there is an internal pro- 
hdbility that the j^Eginsean and the Solonian Attic measures 
stood to each other in the same ratio as the two scales of 
weights, namely, as 5:3; possibly the Spartan measure, 
even if it conformed to that proportion, might be viewed 



COINS, AND MEASURES. 163 

roundly as about half as much again as the Attic, and by 
mistake it might then he treated as something less than half 
as much again, instead of something more than half as much 
again." — This is all the positive evidence produced. 

Surely, so distinguished a critic as M. Boeckh cannot 
think that the definite ratio of 5 : 3, between ^ginsean and 
Attic measures, can be admitted upon evidence such as this ; 
passages not only amplified by so many gratuitous postulates, 
but even distorted from their true and plain meaning. The 
misfortune is, that he goes on to treat the ratio here spoken 
of as a matter perfectly ascertained, and to deduce ulterior 
consequences from it. i 

But M. Boeckh farther contends, that independent of 
positive testimony, there is '' an internal jprobdbility that the 
^ginsean cubic measures stood to the Solonian Attic in the 
same ratio as the two scales of weight, namely, as 5 : 3." 
Admitting for a moment this very questionable position — 
that identity of ratio between the measures and weights of 
the two systems is a fact to be presumed, and not to be 
proved — it amounts to a decisive negation of the ratio of 
5 : 3, for which M. Boeckh is contending. When he says 
that *'he has sufficiently proved the -^gineean talent as 
weight to have been in the ratio of 5 : 3 to the Attic/' he 
cannot have had present to his memory the earlier parts of 
his own book : for he has distinctly shewn the reverse. He 
has shewn, and the inscription to which he appeals places 
the fact beyond a doubt, that Solon, while he altered the 
value of the talent as money, so as to establish a ratio of 3 : 5 
with the ^ginsean talent, left the talent as weight un- 
changed ; or, to use the words of our author himself, p. 115 
(ix. 1), "the ante-Solonian mina had disappeared in the 
money-weight, but still continued in use as commercial 
weight " (down to the period at least to which the inscrip- 
tion refers). A mina of money, or 100 drachmae of silver, 
came by the depreciation of Solon to weigh ^ of an j^ginsean 
mina : but a mina weight of tin, iron, or any other com- 
modity, remained as it was before, not f of an ^ginaean 

m2 



164 REVIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

raina, but -^ of it. Conseqnentlv, the appeal which M. 
Boeckh makes to the original ratio of tlie ^ginaean and 
Attic weights, distinctly contradicts his position — that the 
Attic cubic measures were in the ratio of 3 : 5 to the 
^ginaean. 

In order to maintain the doctrine here alluded to, M. 
Boeckh is driven to the inadmissible hypothesis that Solon, 
when he created the ratio of 3 : 5 between the Attic money- 
talent and the ^o:inaean talent, altered at the same time the 
Attic metretes and medimnus, so as to introduce the same 
ratio to the corresponding ^ginaean denominations. "When 
Solon," (he says) " diminished the Attic money-weight to 
f of the ^ginaean, he at the same time enlarged the 
measures, as we are told by Plutarch on the authority of 
Androtion. This enlargement once appeared to me a doubt- 
ful point : but if the Attic measure had been before purely 
accidental and local, wWiout any correspondence with the 
weight, it may, doubtless, have been smaller than the new 
Solonian measure : at anv rate, we learn from this statement 
that Solon established a new metrical scale." (ix. 2. p. 276). 
Here M. Boeckh overthrows the fundamental assumption on 
which his previous argument had rested. He had before 
told us that we might safely presume the Attic and ^ginaean 
measures to be in the same ratio as the respective weights : 
now he intimates, that the primitive Attic measures may 
have been '' purely local and accidental, without any corre- 
spondence with the weights." The argument derived from 
internal probability, on which he before dwelt, is here for- 
mally discarded ; and we are left, not only without any 
positive testimony, but without any rational ground for 
presuming a ijviori, that the Attic medimnus and metretes 
were to the ^ginaean in the ratio of 3 : 5. 

I believe that the statement of Androtion, as quoted by 
Plutarch (Solon, c. 15), has no reference to the medimnus | 
and metretes, and that we cannot even deduce from it the 
va2:ue inference last intimated bv M. Boeckh — ^viz., that 
Solon made some new arransrement of the measures. The 

j 



COINS, AND MEASURES. 165 

words of Plutarch are — kol ttjv afxa tovtg) yevo/jbh-qv rcov 
T€ fjuerpcov eirav^rjaLv koX tov vo filer /juaro^; e? tl/jLt^v; (so it 
stands in Eeiske's edition: Coray leaves out e?). ''E/caroz; 
yap iTTOLTjcre hpayjioiv ttjv fivdv, irporepov €^BofJi7]KovTa 
rptcov ovaav. Now I think that the words, tSov fierpcov 
eirav^rfcnvj apply simply to the statement which immediately 
follows — to the increase of the mina as a monetary meastire, 
from 73 drachmao to 100 ; of course too, the increase of the 
talent in the same proportion. I agree with the remark 
made by M. Boeckh, p. 114, that this is an incorrect way of 
describing the real monetary change introduced by Solon, 
inasmuch as the mina before that change, as well as after it, 
was divided into 100 drachmae, and not into 73 : the differ- 
ence consisting in the diminished size and weight of the 
drachmae. But still it is the mode of description adopted 
by Androtion : and we may fairly suppose that the words 
"increase of the measures,'^ refer to nothing beyond the 
increased number of drachmae, which every mina and every 
talent were now made to contain, as particularised in the 
succeeding sentence. 

Moreover, it will appear that the strongest considerations 
of " internal probability " — something very little short of an 
internal certainty, conduct us to the conclusion that Solon 
left the Attic measures generally undisturbed — the reverse 
of that which M. Boeckh lays down. For we know positively 
that Solon did not meddle with the weights : he created a 
double meaning for the words mina and talent: he intro- 
duced the anomaly, that the mina — which had hitherto 
meant a known weight of silver, iron, tin, or any other 
merchandise — received a special and exceptional sense when 
applied to silver coin. However men may, in time, become 
accustomed to this, the first moment of divorce between the 
scale of weight and that of money, must present to them a 
perplexing anomaly and repugnance : and there could be but 
one motive for Solon to permit it. All interference with 
customary weights and measures is well known to produce 
so much vexation and discontent, that even the most 



166 REVIEW OF BOEOKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

popular and powerful goyernmeiits experience prodigious 
difficulty in carrying it into effect. For the express purpose 
of affording relief to debtors, Solon degraded the monetary 
standard : but the anomaly, which his new arrangement 
introduced, is an evident proof of his reluctance to disturb 
the general system of weights. And it affords a proof, no 
less evident, that he would not choose such a moment for 
re-arranging the liquid and dry measures. For the frag- 
ments preserved of his poems, impressively attest his painful 
sense of the difficulties and dangers against which he had to 
contend, in the midst of angry mutiny on the part of the 
degraded and enslaved poor, and murmuring acquiescence 
on the part of the rich, in whom all political power had 
hitherto been vested. To add, to the many prevalent ele- 
ments of discontent, a new one of his own creating, would 
be, least of all, consistent with the cautious and com- 
promising spirit, which is conspicuous throughout all his 
enactments. 

These arguments, I think, will suffice to shew that the 
position laid down by M. Boeckh, in regard to the ratio 
between Attic measures and ^ginaean measures, is not only 
unsupported, but incorrect. We have no ground whatever 
for believing that the Attic metretes or medimnus was f of 
the ^ginsean. We do not at all know what w^as the ratio 
betw^een the two ; if indeed it be certain that they were not 
the same. 

. Along with this position, we are compelled to dismiss all 
the series of imaginary ratios comprised in the following 
sentences of the Metrologie (xvi. 1. p. 281). 

" If it be true that the Olympic cubic foot is ^ of the 
Eoman quadrantal (N,B. this is altogether unproved), it 
then contains 53} Eoman sextarii, since the quadrantal 
contains 48 sextarii. But the ^ginaean metretes contains 
120 sextarii (N.B. this is incorrect, depending only on the 
supposed ratio of the Mgm^diR metretes to the Attic) : 
therefore its ratio to the Olympic cubic foot is as 120 : 53^ = 
9 : 4 — or it is 2^ Olympic cubic feet. But the cubic foot 



COINS, AND MEASURES. 167 

has 64 cubic palms: if then the ^ginaean metretes was 
divided like the Attic, as it unquestionably was, into 144 
kotylse, the ^ginsean kotyle contained exactly one cubic 
palm, because 4 : 9 : : 64 : 144. This beautiful coincidence 
resulted necessarily from the fact, that the Olympic cubic 
foot stood to the great Babylonian cubic foot as 2:3, and 
that the -3]gin8ean metretes contained 1 J Babylonian cubic 
feet." 

I sincerely wish that this coincidence had been sustained 
by such evidence as to render its trustworthiness com- 
mensurate with its beauty. 

In the last sentence quoted from M. Boeckh, an alleged 
ratio is noticed between the Olympic cubic foot and. the 
great Babylonian cubic foot, as 2 : 3 — a subject to the in- 
yestigation of which he deyotes the twelfth chapter of his 
volume. And here again I am compelled to lament the 
feebleness of the positive testimony, in the midst of a 
series of suppositions and possibilities, all of which end 
only in an approximative result : whereas the author pro- 
fesses to detect determinate numerical ratios, and to deduce 
from them evidence of original correspondence and derivative 
adjustment between the two systems. 

He cites distinct passages from Hero and Didymus, which 
attest an exact ratio (as 5 : 6) of the Eoman foot, to the 
Philetserian foot employed by the kings of Pergamus in Asia 
Minor, as well as to the Ptolemaic foot in Egypt : and this 
Philetserian foot is probably the same with the royal Persian 
or Babylonian foot, employed under the Persian empire. 
But the ratio alleged of >§/2 : ^3 between the Grecian foot 
and the Babylonian foot rests only upon two passages; of 
the sufficiency of which the reader shall judge. Herodotus 
gives the height and thickness of the walls of Babylon in 
royal cubits : he then adds — 'O Se /SaatXTjtof; irriyv<^ rev 
/jberpiov earl 7r7^;^eo9 /jue^oov rpiat Sa/crvXiotat (i. 178). 
Again, the Scholiast on Lucian's Kataplus, evidently copy- 
ing from Herodotus, comments (c. 16) upon the expression 
of Lucian, oXw ttiJ^^l ^aa-LkiKWy as follows — 'O r^ap /Saac- 



168 REVIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

\lko<^ 7r>7%i;9 e^et virep rov IBlcotlkov koX kolvov rpel^ 
SaKTv\ov<;. Upon which M. Boeckh remarks, p. 214: "By 
the expression fiirpio^ Trfj^v^, as Ideler and others have 
already observed, owtliing can he meant except the well- 
known common cubit of the GreeJcs, of IJ Olympic feet:" 
and he adds that Ideler's view is in this respect confirmed 
by the Scholiast on Lucian (Metrol. xii. 2. p. 214). Wurm 
(de Fonderibus, § 56) adopts the same construction of the 
passage : but in spite of the concurrence of so many able 
expositors, I venture to contend that they all put upon 
Herodotus a meaning which his words do not bear. Hero- 
dotus contrasts the royal cubit with the moderate or ordi- 
nary cubit : he is speaking purely and simply of Babylonian 
measures ; he intimates nothing whatever respecting the 
identitv of the ordinary Babvlonian cubit with the Grecian 
cubit. 

M. Boeckh has shewn verv instructivelv, in the 13th and 
14th chapters of the Metrologie^ that there were in Assyria, 
in Palestine, and in Egypt, two distinct scales of length — 
a royal cubit or sacred cubit, and a common cubit : the 
former longer by a definite quantity than the latter, and em- 
ployed principally for solemn or public purposes. Now it is 
plain, when Herodotus calls the royal cubit " longer by three 
finger-breadths or daktyls than the moderate ciibit^' that 
the direct comparison is between two distinct Babylonian 
measures. On what ground are we to presume an implied 
identity between the smaller Babylonian measure and a 
Grecian measiu-e of the same denomination ? 

I say, designedly, identity, or precise eqiiality : the point 
which M. Boeckh's argument requires him to make out. 
For if nothing more be meant than approximative equality, 
this is a matter which I willingly concede. It is to be recol- 
lected that the cubit and the foot, having a natural standard, 
cannot differ very much from each other in any two countries^ 
though they will always differ to a certain extent, unless 
we suppose an intentional derivation or adjustment. Any 
English traveller visiting France durin^• the last century, 



COINS, AND MEASURES. 169 

and describing the length of a room or a building, would 
probably mention the number of feet as reported to him, 
without noticing the minute difference between the French 
foot and the English foot. But if he found that the French 
government, in measuring farms for the assessment of the 
land-tax, employed a special foot measure, called the royal 
foot, three inches longer than the ordinary foot of France, 
he would be struck with this fact, and w^ould insert in his 
journal — '' The royal foot is three inches longer than the 
ordinary foot." But he w^ould not mean thereby to assert, 
nor would any reader be authorised to infer, that the 
ordinary foot of France was equal to the ordinary foot of 
England. 

Just such is the declaration of Herodotus. All that we 
can legitimately deduce from it, is, that the "moderate 
cubit " of Babylon differed from the Grecian cubit no more 
than the ordinary cubit of one nation might naturally differ 
from the ordinary cubit of another. 

Nor is it indeed certain that there was one common 
cubit in Greece : meaning always a measure adapted to one 
precise standard. That the Samians had a cubit of their 
own, we know from Herodotus (ii. 168), who says that the 
Egyptian cubit was equal to the Samian. M. Boeckh admits 
that the Samian cubit was completely different from the 
common Grecian cubit (xiii. 2. p. 221) : of course therefore 
the Samian foot measure must have differed in the same 
proportion : a fact not easy to be reconciled with the state- 
ment of M. Boeckh in another place (xvi. 1. p. 281) " that 
no other Grecian foot than the Olympic foot, or the foot of 
the Olympic stadium, existed." What evidence is there to 
prove that the Olympic standard of the foot-measure was 
adopted by all the countless autonomous communities of 
Greece ? Why are we to regard Samos as the solitary case 
of exception? Long measures differ in this respect from 
cubic measures or weights — they have a natural standard : 
but the unit of weight or of capacity must be determined 
by the special dictum of law. An autonomous community, 



170 REVIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

on first establishing a scale of weight, being under the neces- 
sity of naaking some arbitrary selection, might naturally 
borrow the Euboic or the ^ginaean scale, prevalent amongst 
its neighbours : but many distinct standards of the foot- 
measure, all proceeding from the natural standard of the 
human foot, but each minutely differing from the rest, might 
co-exist in Greece without any serious inconvenience. We 
are not to presume here any precise identity, or universal 
adoption of one common standard, imless we can prove the 
fact by some positive evidence. 

Until the abundant erudition of M. Boeckh can supply 
such evidence, I must contend that he is not entitled to 
treat the Olympic foot as an universally adopted Grecian 
foot : still less is he entitled to consider Herodotus as having 
alluded to this Olympic foot, and the cubit founded upon it, 
when he said that " the Babylonian cubit was three daktyls 
longer than the moderate cubit." Unfortunately, these two 
unauthorized assumptions lie at the bottom of all the elabo- 
rate calculations in the Metrologie respecting the Grecian 
and Babylonian long measures — calculations leading after 
all only to an approximative result, which M. Boeckh is 
obliged to excuse by appealing to the inaccurate mechanical 
proceedings of the ancients. Such mechanical inaccuracy 
I freely admit ; and if sufficient positive testimony were 
produced, of intentional correspondence between two distinct 
metrical systems in the ancient world, I should not reject 
the testimony on the ground that details of the proceeding' 
had not precisely conformed to the attested designs of the 
framers. But here we are without positive testimony : we 
are called upon to infer intentional adaptation, or relation- 
ship between two systems, merely from harmony in the 
results ; and for such an inference nothing short of exact 
harmony — no approximative analogies — will suffice. More 
especially is this true with respect to the foot and the cubit : 
measures which always have been and always will be nearly 
equal, even in countries the most widely separated. 

The most remarkable circumstance which characterizes 



COINS, AND MEASUEES. 171 

the long measures as well as the weights, of Greece, Asia, 
and Egypt, is the prevalence of the same scale of division 
— the cubit, the foot, the span, the palm, and the dactyl. 
Thoroughout all the wide extent of territory here spoken of, 
this same scale of division prevailed, pointedly distinguished 
from the imcial or duodecimal division of the foot which we 
find in Italy and Sicily. 

That so precise a conformity in the metrical scale argues 
one common origin, and that Greece was in this respect a 
borrower from the East, I see no reason to doubt. But that 
the actual standard of the lengths measured was identical 
and derivative, I cannot believe until I see it proved. M. 
Boeckh nevertheless permits himself to assert positively — 
" As the Grecian long measure has been already shewn to 
have existed in the earliest times in Egypt, which had a 
community of system with the Chalda^ans, the derivation of 
the Grecian measure either from the East or from Egypt 
no longer admits of a doubt " (xvi. 1. p. 281). I trust that 
the complete conviction which this sentence breathes will 
induce M. Boeckh to re-examine and improve the very 
precarious evidence on which alone it now reposes. 

As I have felt myself compelled to call in question many 
references upon which M. Boeckh seems implicitly to rely, I 
will notice one case in which he seems to me to impugn 
without reason the testimony of one of his own best autho- 
rities. In treating of the royal or Philetserian foot, applied 
in the measurements of Asia Minor under the kings of Per- 
gamus, he cites a passage from Hero, in which the ratio of 
the Philetserian foot to the Eoman foot is given as 6 : 5 — 
given in plain language and with precise fractions {MetroL 
xii. 2 ; p. 215). But M. Boeckh finds that this ratio does 
not exactly comport with that which he imagines himself 
to have discovered as the original determining ratio of the 
Babylonian foot to the Grecian foot, viz. ^3 ^2. Accord- 
ingly, he denies the rigid accuracy of the valuation given by 
Hero : he says — ^* Assuredly the estimate of the Philetserian 
foot in reference to the Koman foot as G : 5, is not precise, 



172 KEYIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, 

because it is certain that neither of them was determined 
with any view to the other" (p. 218). Now there is not 
throuo'hout the whole of M. Boeckh's metrolooical investi- 
gatioDS, a more direct, precise, or unimpeached testimony 
than tliis of Hero, which he treats as merely approximative : 
and that too because it does not coincide with a long tissue 
of calculations of his own, based upon assumptions as yet 
unsupported. If a statement such as this of Hero is not 
to be trusted, the class of researches to which the Metrologie 
is devoted will become utterly impracticable : for no better 
evidence can be procured. 

The last four chapters of M. Boeckh's volume are devoted 
to an account of the various pound weights and scales of 
weight throughout Italy; of the perplexing variations in 
the Eoman silver and copper money ; and of the monetary 
estimates in the census of Servius TuUius. They are chapters 
highly instructive : in respect to the Roman silver money, 
the clearest and most complete that I know. He rejects 
and refutes the opinion of Mebuhr, that the debasement of 
the Roman standard was caused or accompanied by an extra- 
ordinary rise in the value of copper, so that the diminished 
coins possessed as great a purchasing power as the full-sized 
coins had possessed before. Whether the value of the metal 
copper underwent any serious or continued reduction in refer- 
ence to silver, may be a matter of reasonable doubt : certain 
it is, that no such adventitious cause need be invoked to 
account for the degradation of the standard. Such a pro- 
ceeding has been so nearly universal with governments both 
ancient and modern, that the contrary may be looked upon 
as a remarkable exception. 

The limits to which this article has already extended will 
not permit me to furnish any detailed remarks upon M. 
Boeckh's account of the Itahan and Roman scales of \veight 
and money. I will only mention, that since the publication 
of the Metrologie, another work of singular importance on 
the same subject has appeared in Italy, by the learned 
fathers Marchi and Tessieri : ' L'^es grave del Museo Kirche- 



COINS, AND MEASURES. 173 

riano, ovvero le Monete primitive de' Popoli dell' Italia 
Media ordinate e descritte. Eoma 1839/ The collection 
of the Kircherian Museum at Eome, unrivalled in the 
number and completeness of its specimens of the ancient 
Italian ses grave, and enriched by many recent discoveries, 
has here, for the first time, been explained and reduced 
to order, and connected with the inferences legitimately 
deducible from it. 

Two of these inferences I will briefly glance at, inasmuch 
as they bear directly upon the positions maintained in M. 
Boeckh's Metrologie ; in one case, in the way of confirmation, 
in the other, of contradiction. 

M. Boeckh advances two positions ; first, that the duo- 
decimal division of the pound prevailed all over Italy ; next, 
that the absolute weight called by the name of a found was 
not the same throughout that country — heavier in some parts, 
lighter in others. 

The second of these two positions has been placed beyond 
a doubt by the new facts set forth in the work of the two 
learned fathers. They have produced ancient cast copper- 
money of the Latins and Volscians, which belong to an as, or 
pound weighing 13 Eoman ounces, and coins of Hadria in 
Picenum, which indicate an as, reaching even to 16 Roman 
ounces. The ancient Etruscan pound, as far as we can judge 
by the coins published and authenticated, appears to have 
been the lightest in Italy. 

But, on the other hand, the opinion of M. Boeckh, that 
the duodecimal division of the pound was universal through- 
out Italy, has been shewn to be erroneous. Amongst the 
people of middle Italy, north of the Apennines, a decimal 
division of the pound prevailed, distinguishing them from the 
people south of the same chain, who employed the duode- 
cimal scale. Of the numerous coins belonging to the people 
south of the Apennines, not a single quincunx, or coin of five 
ounces, has yet been discovered : the complete series runs 
from the semis or six ounces downwards, omitting the quin- 
cunx — triens, quadrans, sextans, and uncia. On the other 



174 REVIEW OF BOECKH ON ANCIENT WEIGHTS, ETC. 

hand, for the coins north of the Apennines, comprising those 
of seven different townships, no semis has ever been found ; 
the highest denomination below the as is the quincunx, below 
which the other coins appear just as in the duodecimal series. 
There is no way of explaining this veiy marked and uniform 
contrast, except by admitting a decimal division of the pound 
north of the Apennines* In Sicily, where the coalescence 
of the Grecian and Italian systems produced a complication 
almost inextricable, a silver quincunx as well as a semis 
appears to have prevailed : at least we find in the fragments 
of Epicharmus mention both of TrevrcoyKcov and rj/jLlXtrpov 
(Pollux, ix. 82). This double scale of weight, prevalent in 
different regions of Italy, is a remarkable phenomenon ; only 
recently verified, and as yet unexplained. 



* See the valuable dissertation of Dr. Lepsius, Ueher die Ver- 
hreitiing des Italisclien Milnzsystems von Etrurien aus, p. 74. (Leipzig, 
1842.) 



PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 

m COMMEMORATION OF THE TWENTY-FIRST ANNIVERSARY 
OF THE LONDON SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION. 



{In the London Tavern, 1st June, 1846.) 



PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 

IN COMMEMORATION OF THE TWENTY-FIRST ANNIVERSARY 
OF THE LONDON SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION. 



The usual loyal toasts haying been drunk, the Chairman 
then said : — I now have to propose to you, gentlemen, the 
toast which forms the immediate subject of our present 
meeting. It will need no eloquence to recommend it to 
your cordial reception ; nevertheless, I should be doing little 
justice, either to my own feelings or to yours, if I did not 
preface the introduction of it with a few words of allusion 
to the past as well as to present circumstances. I propose to 
you the toast, " Prosperity to the City of London Literary and 
Scientific Institution." 

Twenty-one years have now elapsed, gentlemen, since this 
Institution was first projected and brought into existence, 
intended for the special use and benefit of persons engaged 
in professional and commercial pursuits. Twenty-one years 
forms a large fraction of every man's life ; a space of time in 
which much may be achieved, and much ought to be achieved, 
by individuals as well as by communities ; a space long 
enough to take measure of the practical benefits and eflSciency 
of any association, and to judge how far it may boast of 
good fruit in the past, or carry the promise of still better 
fruit for the future. I am happy in the knowledge that 
the twenty-one years of collective life which this Institution 
has enjoyed, have more than justified the largest expectations 
of its original projectors. I am still more happy in the 
conviction that, while a fair allowance is to be made for 

N 



178 PRESIDENTIAL ADDEESS, 

human infirmity of temper, and while occasional mistakes in 
dealing with untried contingencies have been inevitable, there 
has been throughout the management of our Institution 
nothing in the nature of extravagance, or destructive party 
spirit, or delusive conceptions of its legitimate scope and pur- 
poses — much less any reproach of graver character — to sully 
the honourable recollections of our earliest and most difficult 
period. 

In the month of June, 1825, at the time when our first 
meeting for the establishment of the Institution took place, I 
believe that no Institution of this precise character, and in- 
tended for the same description of persons, yet existed in the 
United Kino'dom. AYe had, indeed, before us the encourao-ins: 
example of the Mechanics' Institution, then recently brought 
into working, and producing, as now, admirable results ; and 
Dr. Birkbeck, the founder of that Institution, to whose inde- 
fatigable and creative genius the cause of popular instruction 
owes more than to any man that ever lived, was still in the 
full vio'our of his career, to show how much could be done 
by sino'le-hearted enero-y and talent in brino-ius: toaether 
isolated individuals for the common purpose of improvement. 
But there existed no analogous scheme for the large and 
important class by whom our city is chiefly occupied ; 
and it was to fill up in part this gap that the present 
Institution was projected. I know, indeed, and I rejoice to 
know, that there are now several Institutions analogous 
to our own ; some in other parts of London — some 
in the other great towns of this country. I am sure that 
every gentleman who hears me will wish them success and 
prosperity. I pretend not to raise invidious comparisons 
between those societies and our own ; I hope, in all good 
and useful results, they will fully rival us, and that they 
will leave to us nothing but that w^hich is indisputably our 
due — the honour of historical precedence — the honour of 
having been the first to originate a Literary Institution for 
commercial and professional persons. 

To an audience like you, gentlemen — and I would fain hope, 



1 



LONDON SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION. 179 

to any intelligent audience of the present day — arguments to 
demonstrate the value of institutions such as ours would be 
trite and superfluous. But such was not the case when this 
Institution first began. In 1825 the idea was novel, and the 
scheme untried ; it required a degree of openness and libera- 
lity of mind, then by no means common, to appreciate its 
usefulness ; it required a certain degree of penetration, and, 
I will add, a certain measure of that valuable attribute 
called a hopeful temperament, to believe that, if useful, 
it was also practicable. There were many who doubted 
whether, when the banner of instruction and improvement was 
unfurled, there would be found any considerable body of 
volunteers from the commercial and professional classes to 
flock to it : there were still more who doubted whether those 
volunteers who came would stay to uphold it, would accept 
a systematic organization, or would furnish out of their own 
number a body of managers willing and able to undertake 
laborious functions of detail. A new member, who now for 
the first time visits our prennses in Aldersgate Street, sees 
at once that his subscription purchases for him something 
substantive, tangible, full of interest and convenience, to say 
the least of it ; but in June, 1825, all these conveniences 
were yet only in promise, and it might reasonably be held 
uncertain whether a sufficient number of members would 
have faith in that promise being realized, to induce them to 
come forward with subscriptions, at that time necessarily 
confided to the employment of gentlemen not personally 
known. To those among the friends and gentlemen 
around me who have present to their minds (as I have 
present to mine) the debates and calculations of the spring 
of 1825, when we were engaged in ushering this Institution 
into existence, it will be well known that we had a 
thousand uncertainties of this character to contend w^ith. 
They will recollect how much we owe to the high public 
character, and the forward and generous zeal of my late 
lamented friend, Mr. John Smith, the first president of 
our nascent Institution — a gentleman whose name cannot 

N 2 



180 PRESIDENTIAL ADDEESS, 

be mentioned without esteem and honour, and who stood 
always among the foremost in the promotion of public in- 
struction. Besides Mr. John Smith, the new Institution was 
fortunate enouoh to find other liberal and hio'h-minded 
commercial men to support and encourage its early efforts : 
what was better than any supporters, it obtained earnest, 
discreet, and laborious committee-men among its own mem- 
bers, several of whom I am happy to see at this table, who 
undertook the troublesome and unrewarded task of oyer- 
coming all the difficulties of its first organization, and accom- 
plished that task with skill and success. Moreover — a point 
no less essential than good committee-men — the Institution 
was also fortunate enough to find an exemplary secretary, Mr. 
Stacy, whose last twenty-one years have been devoted to the 
service of the Institution with a diligence as unwearied as it 
has been well-directed, and whose remarkable talent, both 
for business and for conciliaticm, was of the most special 
necessity during the first years of difficulty with which the 
Institution had to struggle. Through these valuable and 
meritorious agencies our Institution w^as enabled to take an 
honourable start even from the first, to work itself gradually 
into efficient operation, even when it had everything to create 
and provide, and to realize fully that which its sponsors had 
promised and vowed when the name was first bestowed. 

I glance, briefly, gentlemen, at these topics, connected 
with the infancy of our Institution, not less in the way of 
congratulation as to the past than in that of contrast 
and encouragement as to the present. It was then in its 
season of probation; it had to win its way to confidence, 
and to establish a character with the commercial and pro- 
fessional public. It has now earned that confidence, and 
needs no testimonial of character, except its own past con- 
duct. Our course has been one of progressive increase, with 
interruption only rare and occasional. Distributing our 
past life of twenty-one years into three periods of seven 
•years each, our average number of members was, during 
the first of these periods, 728; during the second, 903; 



LONDON SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION. 181 

during the third, 974; and we now number a total of 
1073 members. We possess a library, for reference and 
circulation, of between 9000 and 10,000 volumes; 
we have spacious and convenient premises, enlarged and 
remodelled — I might almost say rebuilt — by ourselves, 
though, in spite of the most careful economy, at a very 
heavy cost ; we can show a Museum with various scientific 
accompaniments and instructive specimens, and a sufficient 
number of class-rooms for those classes which are formed 
among the members to prosecute some continuous branch 
of study. We can boast, also, an excellent and com- 
modious lecture-room, built by ourselves, and paid for by 
our own money. This lecture-room was opened in 1829, 
in the fifth year of our existence, by an inaugural address, 
which the present Lord Chief Justice of England, then 
Mr. Common-Sergeant Denman, did us the honour to deliver. 
The room holds, with perfect convenience, between 500 and 
600 persons, and when first opened was amply sufficient 
for all our wants ; but the increase in our numbers has 
now rendered it inadequate to its purpose, and the just 
complaint of our members respecting the insufficiency of 
room and comfort on evenings of cro\^ded attendance, is 
one of the most pressing difficulties with which our Insti- 
tution has now to contend, and which I hope it will be 
soon in a position to remove. Independent of the lecture- 
room, the large outlay upon our premises generally has 
of course driven us to contract a considerable debt ; and 
the interest upon this debt, as well as the setting apart of 
instalments for its gradual liquidation, constrains us to the 
painful necessity of circumscribing both our usefulness to 
the members and our furtherance to science and literature. 
But, gentlemen, this necessity, painful as it is, is not beyond 
our means. Our Institution, though a debtor, is not an 
embarrassed debtor: that which it has promised it has 
performed faithfully, and is competent as well as willing 
still to perform. I dwell upon this fact with emphasis, 
and I should deeply regret if it were not true to the 



182 PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 

letter. It is not for us, who rest altogether upon the support 
of a commercial and professional public, to set the example 
of disregarding that which, among such a public especially, 
is as the staff and guardian of life — pecuniary good faith 
and probity. No, gentlemen; if our Institution invokes, 
as it does invoke, an augmentation of funds, we do not 
come forward as suppliant insolvents, to solicit relief or 
extrication from past imprudences or present embarrass- 
ments ; we ta]^e higher ground. We come forward as 
stewards in the cause of literature and science in this city, 
feeling that we have established a fair and honourable 
claim to the confidence of all who have that holy cause 
at heart. We come prepared to show that our Institution, 
as it stands, both is now, and has been throughout its 
twenty-one years' life, good and useful ; and we ground 
upon that fact a wish to acquire means of extending our use- 
fulness yet further. We know that we have done far more 
than could reasonably have been expected, or than any 
one actually did expect, in 1825 ; and that, assuming only 
the same degree of generous zeal for literature and science 
which prevailed then, the man who desires to deepen their 
roots and promote their development in the city of London 
will find no better hands to aid him than our Institution. 
Feeling a pride, gentlemen, in what we have done for these 
objects during the past, we are in no w^ay ashamed of saying 
that we desire to be armed with still ampler and more unfet- 
tered powers of serving the same purposes during the future. 
Gentlemen, the twenty-one years' biography of our Insti- 
tution stands permanently on record in the two thick manu- 
script volumes in the hands of our secretary, containing the 
minutes of forty-two regular half-yearly meetings of the 
members of the Institution, and of various special general 
meetings held by public notice. I need not remind you that, 
at each of these half-yearly meetings, it is both the duty and 
the practice of the managing committee to present a report 
on the general and financial condition of the Institution ; so 
that the series of those reports forms a continuous narrative, 



LONDON SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION. 183 

not less instructive than authentic. At several of those 
meetings I had myself the honour to preside : and I can per- 
sonally testify to the good feeling and propriety with which 
they were conducted, to the due admixture of a free spirit 
of criticism with a reasonable confidence in the board of 
management, and with cheerful acquiescence in the con- 
cluding vote of the majority. I have recently refreshed 
my memory, and renewed my acquaintance with these forty- 
two half-yearly reports, and with the facts set forth in them 
from time to time by the committee ; and I find in them 
ample evidences of an intellectual movement at once well 
sustained and well directed. I find in them, besides, proofs 
of an assiduous cultivation of those arts and tastes which, if 
they lie apart from the intellect properly so called, are yet 
of a character most in harmony with the intellectual man, 
and tend to awaken and develop the imaginative impulses 
of our nature. First, I trace with satisfaction the gradual 
growth of the library of the Institution from its first modest 
poverty in 1825 — not more than 89 volumes — to its present 
comparative abundance, of more than 9000 volumes. I 
content myself with calling this comparative abundance, 
for I trust that it is destined to still further increase, 
and still wider usefulness. Nor is it only the catalogue 
of the library which has become more bulky, or the shelves 
which have become fuller ; there is ample proof that the 
members make good use of the library, and desire to read 
the books as well as to possess them. There is ample proof 
of this, even for those to whom the fact is not familiar by 
personal experience, in the difficulty which the committee 
have had in so framing their library regulations as to satisfy 
the impatience of members for procuring books to read. 

From the library I pass to the lectures, many paid, some 
gratuitous ; and when I go through the list of these various 
lectures, I find that there is scarcely any subject — scientific, 
literary, philosophical, economical, historical, or connected 
with poetry and the arts — which has not been presented, more 
or less extensivelv, to the minds of the members of ourlnsti- 



184 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 

tution. The list would be far too long to read, and it is of 
course diversified so as to meet great varieties of taste and 
tendencies on the part of different members : there may be 
some subjects too dry, others too frivolous, according to the 
judgment of the person criticising ; but I, for my part, should 
be sorry to see any of them left out. The Institution only 
lives and thrives by the alliance of these diversities of pursuit ; 
the co-operation of both is indispensable to the gratification 
of every one singly. Of these numerous lectures — whether 
on astronomy and geography, on the productions and attri- 
butes of distant countries, on experimental chemistry, physics, 
or physiology, on mental philosophy and political economy, 
on history, the drama, poetry, or painting — of all these lec- 
tures, the least impressive will not have been without its echo 
and response in the minds of those who heard it, while the 
richest and most emphatic will have proved eminently stir- 
ring and suggestive. And, gentlemen, the number of these 
lectures which have been gratuitous is a fact highly deserving 
of notice on the part of those who are interested in the pros- 
perity of the Institution, just as it well merits the continued 
expressions of thanks which have been passed at every half- 
yearly meeting. It proves the valuable influence of such 
institutions as ours in calling forth disinterested exertions 
on the part of instructed men ; and it is the more gratifying, 
inasmuch as several of these lecturers have themselves been 
members of the Institution. 

But, gentlemen, the lectures, thoug'h beneficial and indis- 
pensable, are not the department of our Institution which I 
look at with the greatest interest. The classes for special and 
continuous instruction on particular subjects, formed among 
the members themselves, under the auspices of the managing 
committee, are, in my mind, a circumstance yet more impres- 
sive and encouraging. In the lecture-room, let the talents 
of the lecturer be what they may, the minds of the hearers 
are more passive than active : they hear and they feel, they 
receive wholesome nutriment, a part of which will doubtless 
remain with them ; but they are, after all, only recipients — 



LONDON SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION. 185 

recipients of an impulse which comes upon them from 
without, and is to a great degree transient. It is otherwise 
with the classes meeting continuously for special, perseveriiig, 
and laborious instruction: whether assisted and superin- 
tended, as many of them have been, by a paid master, pro- 
vided by the committee, or formed without that assistance, 
where the committee have not been able, with a due regard 
to the finances of the Institution, to grant assistance, by the 
members themselves on the principle of mutual instruc- 
tion. It is in these class-rooms, gentlemen, that you see 
our Institution in active and living function. The library 
and the lecture-room do, indeed, furnish the previous helps; 
but it is in these class-rooms that you see the nutriment 
assimilate, the blood circulate, the muscle move. It is 
here that you witness that most gratifying phenomenon — 
the adult man again putting himself to school ; undergoing 
that self-imposed labour and training which, with reference 
to individuals, has in all ages been the great cause of 
eminence to those whom the world has ennobled, but which, 
with reference to more numerous bodies, stands as the 
imposing distinction of our nineteenth century. For the 
French and Latin languages, I observe that classes have been 
constantly going on and well attended, with little interrup- 
tion. For tbe German, less constantly, yet still frequently. 
For the Italian and Spanish, also frequently. Nor have 
languages alone formed the subjects of this class study. I 
notice also other pursuits, usually less popular, which have 
been approached with the same persevering and earnest 
devotion of time and trouble. I observe records of classes 
on natural and experimental physics, on mathematics, on 
political economy, on logic, on phrenology, and various 
other subjects ; which I state, gentlemen, not at all with a 
view of pretending to set forth a list of all that has been 
done, but only as specimens of what I may call the intel- 
lectual vitality of our Institution, calculated to make our 
tendencies and purposes better understood. There is, how- 
ever, one class which I cannot omit specially to notice, be- 



186 ; PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 

cause it both is now, and has long been, well sustained and 
popular ; and because it is, in my judgment, eminently use- 
ful, as exercising a powerful stimulus to activity on the 
minds of the members, I mean the class for historical and 
philological discussion. Standing, as the Institution does, 
apart from all party political excitement and controYersial 
religion, and deeply interested as it is in maintaining in- 
ternal harmony among its members, the discussion class lias 
been kept free from the two great perils which might have 
impaired its usefulness. The questions, announced before- 
hand, have been found to provoke a serious preliminary study, 
and to cultivate among the members both the faculties of 
thought and expression, in a manner very different from that 
empty fluency about nothing, which the habits of a mere 
debating society too often generate. The listening members 
have been disposed to enforce, and the speakers to observe, a 
degree of good feeling, as well as an intelligent handling of 
the subject, which renders this class a valuable instrument 
of improvement. And here again we meet with a new pro- 
vocative to that mental labour on the value of which I 
have so much insisted. 

I shall not forget to notice, also, the music and drawing 
classes, conducted by members of the Institution ; partly be- 
cause the former especially is found to be one of the most 
attractive and popular classes within its walls ; partly because 
those musical exercises which Milton did not disdain to com- 
prehend in his lofty sketch of the curriculum of a gentle- 
man's education, may well be numbered among the allure- 
ments of our premises in Aldersgate Street, once the actual 
site of that illustrious man's house and abode. They form a 
necessary part of that character of universality to which the 
Institution aspires, and which it must maintain undiminished, 
if it would be at once self-supporting and permanent. Com- 
plexity and variety of pursuit is essential to its usefulness 
not less than to its stability ; it must be competent to meet 
the demands both of the intellect and the imagination in 
their principal branches ; it must represent, if I may so 



LONDON SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION. 187 

speak, a little mental world, wherein all the manifold work- 
ings of the vast mental world without, are seen in abridg- 
ment and in miniature. Much credit is due to its managers 
for having steadily kept in view this comprehensive mission, 
neither disdaining the light and recreative subjects, nor 
shrinking from the dry and serious ; the fuller audiences of 
the former both sustain, and are sustained by, the more 
select and laborious students who devote themselves to the 
latter. 

I am happy further to know that the advantages of 
the lectures and of the library are open to ladies, and 
that this privilege is actually employed to a consider- 
able extent, producing unmixed benefit. For, certainly, 
literary and intellectual culture is not less advantageous to 
one sex than to the other ; and our Institution ought to be 
the last to sanction that narrow view which would deprive 
our female relatives of access to the means of improvement, 
while we are labouring hard to disseminate them among our- 
selves. 

Now, gentlemen, it is the essential principle of our Institu- 
tion to be voluntary and self-supporting. We have no other 
permanent fund of reliance than the subscriptions of our 
members ; and if ever the time shall come when they shall 
deem the advantages of the Institution an insufficient 
equivalent for what they are called upon to pay, we shall 
not survive, nor shall we deserve to survive, any longer. 
I am one of those who number self-reliance among the car- 
dinal virtues of the human bosom, second in rank only to 
honesty and integrity ; and it is one of the circumstances 
of which I feel proud in the history of this Institution, 
that it has been self-relying and self-supporting. Its 
members have proved this, as by their other conduct, so also 
by raising the large sum of money required for the repair 
and enlargement of their premises, through loans derived 
chiefly from individuals of their own number. But, gentle- 
men, the man that helps himself is the man that best de- 
serves the help of others ; and I will not scruple to maintain 



188 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 

that this Institution renders a service to the commercial and 
professional public of London, which entitles it to call for such 
help, even from those who may not feel induced to join it as 
members. I believe it to have a powerful claim on the 
approbation, countenance, and aid of the merchants and 
bankers generally of this great city. To say nothing of that 
disinterested sympathy which ought to prevail, and which 
doubtless in most cases will prevail, between the principal 
of an establishment and the younger men who serve as his 
auxiliaries, I do not hesitate to affirm that he has a 
positive interest in upholding their morality, in enlarging 
their intelligence, in opening the most favourable avenues 
(as far as he can do so without obtrusive interference) for the 
employment and direction of their leisure hours. Speaking 
as one, the best years of whose life have been passed as prin- 
cipal of a banking house, I contend, emphatically, that mer- 
chants and bankers will obey the call of interest, as well as 
the call of duty, in seconding the voluntary effi^rts of our 
members, and in strengthening the self-acquired position 
w^hich our Institution now occupies. Though useful for men 
of all ages, its beneficial influence will, of course, be found 
most efficient in regard to younger men — to that age when 
the character is ductile and the tastes undetermined — 
when much depends, for good or evil, on the associates 
with whom a youth may be thrown into connection. In 
those early, and, to a certain extent, doubtful years, the 
admission of a young man into our Institution, whether you 
look at it as keeping him out of the reach of expense, as 
guaranteeing him against dissipated company, or as opening 
to him the largest measure of elevating and refined pursuits 
which in his position is attainable, — in all these points of 
view, I say, the admission to our Institution will prove 
to him at once tutelary and attractive. He has his 
bread to get, doubtless; his industrious habits must not 
be impaired. Certainly, if I supposed for a moment that 
our Institution would impair them, I should not be here to 
uphold it. I should consider that any other service which 



LONDON SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION. • 189 

the Institution miglit do him would be a poor compensa- 
tion for the loss of his independent industry. But, gentle- 
men, the young man who enters our Institution, having his 
bread to get, finds every other member of it in the same 
situation as himself; every member of it is also com- 
mercial and professional, having his leisure to bestow upon 
the Institution, but having no free time besides. It is not 
among a body of men such as this that any sentiment un- 
favourable to industry — any sentiment tending to excuse 
negligence or distraction of mind — can ever for a moment 
have a chance of succeeding. 

Well, gentlemen, I shall grant most fully, that with a 
commercial and professional public, habits of steady industry 
are the first thing needful ; but I shall contend, with equal 
strenuousness, that they are not the only thing needful. 
There are, in the life of every commercial and professional 
man, hours of leisure, as well as hours of work — I wish, in- 
deed, from the bottom of my heart, that the circumstances 
were such as to enable him to command still longer hours of 
leisure — but that which he now enjoys is enough to make a 
considerable difference, according as it is well or ill bestowed. 
Now, gentlemen, there are many innocent and agreeable 
ways of passing leisure; and I am the last person to obtrude 
the literary, the scientific, the recreative pursuits of our In- 
stitution upon any unwilling partaker. If a young man has 
tastes of another kind, I wish him happy in his own way. 
But I do say, that if he chance to have a taste for literary 
or scientific pursuits, or for mental recreations, it is of very 
great moment that the taste should not be stifled for want 
of nourishment, nor die out from the mere impossibility 
of gratification. Suppose him to come from that valuable 
and economical place of education now flourishing among us 
— the City of London School — or from any other good school 
elsewhere, and to pass from thence into a counting-house ; he 
will doubtless have treasured up a certain stock of acquired 
knowledge, and will perhaps have brought away a treasure 
hardly less valuable —the wish to acquire more knowledge. 



190 • PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 

This is the exact case with many a young man when he first 
enters upon the threshold of his commercial career ; for the 
fatal supposition, that what has been learnt at school has 
been learnt only to be thrown aside or buried like the talent 
in a napkin, is a mistake, committed, indeed, by too many 
persons in every rank of life, but not committed by all. I do 
not hesitate to affirm, gentlemen, that to a young man with 
these dispositions our Institution holds out the most effective 
support, and the most propitious allurement, which his situa- 
tion admits. It brings into play those principles of sociability 
which are so predominant in the youthful character, and 
which, if they do not find good objects to fasten upon, are 
but too likely to be seduced towards frivolities, perhaps even 
towards what is positively bad — it brings into play, I say, 
those principles of sociability, and allies them with pursuits 
at once improving to the intellect and elevating to the ima- 
gination. Gentlemen, this is a great and a noble end — to 
blend the extension of human sociability with the improve- 
ment of human intellect, and with the expansion of our 
imaginative pleasures ; to bring men together, not merely 
as partakers of the same meat and drink, not merely as part- 
ners in the same scheme of commercial gain, but also as 
fellow-proprietors of the same rational nature, and as mutual 
agents each in the improvement of others. Under one form 
or another, this is one of the capital problems of modern 
society, and our Institution may well be proud of helping to 
accomplish it. Humble, indeed, our efforts are, and on a 
small scale, as compared with what we can all wish and con- 
ceive : but even the undistino-uished soldier in the ranks 
derives some dignity from the consciousness of a grand cause 
upheld in part by his arm. 

A young man of the commercial or professional class, who 
enlists in our regiment, finds himself in a companionship 
calculated to develop all the improving tendencies of his 
nature, and, I venture boldly to assert, not calculated to 
develop any others ; certainly none for which himself, or his 
relatives, might have reason to feel after-repentance. He 



LONDON SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION. 191 

finds encouragement and sympathy in keeping alive the 
acquisitions of his school period, or in extending the same 
habits to new subjects of study ; the dead volumes on the 
library shelves, and the living voice in the lecture-room, are 
alike calculated to enlarge the range of his ideas ; whatever 
be his vein of taste, or line of study, he will enjoy greater 
facilities for prosecuting it than would be open to him in any 
other quarter. He will learn to respect and value the in- 
tellectual tendencies of others, even though they happen to 
be different from his own, and to regard human improve- 
ment as one great whole, towards which many different 
streams converge. If his mind be strung no higher than 
the pitch of passive curiosity, it will, at least, find an apt and 
abundant nutriment, often invigorating, always pleasing and 
harmless: if it be more self-working and inquisitive, there 
will be ample materials of thought, and definite objects of 
acquisition, placed within his reach, together with a little 
community quite sufficiently extensive to sustain within him 
the wholesome fire of emulation. In those years which pre- 
cede the age when he will think it prudent to take upon him 
the charo^e of a familv, our Institution offers to him a harbour 
for his leisure hours, a diversion from his daily toil, and a 
stimulus for all the seeds of intellectual life that are dormant 
within him. It holds out opportunities such as Daniel Defoe, 
or other men of genius, who knew the city of London in its 
earlier and grosser days, must have sighed for in vain in their 
own solitary parlours. 

And, gentlemen, let me again say it, he will find every- 
thing in our Institution arranged with a view to the prior and 
imperious exigencies of a life of industry. We look to the 
commercial and professional classes, and we look to none 
besides : we offer them mental occupation for their leisure 
hours only, with the full knowledge, and with the sincere 
regret, that they have no room for more. We know both the 
moderate means, and the moderate leisure, of those for whom 
we work ; we shall seek to engraft upon their habits of 
business as much of literature and science as the case admits, 



192 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 

but we shall not encourage them to convert the accessory 
occupation into the principal. Upon the individual industry, 
prudence, and success of our members, each in his own sepa- 
rate walk of life, depends, not merely the prosperity, but even 
the continued existence, of the collective Institution. We 
have this important truth present to our minds as intimately 
as if it were engraven on the walls of our building ; and could 
we by possibility forget it, we should find it thrust upon our 
attention by the manner in which occasional depressions, in 
the general state of London commerce, operate in diminish- 
ing the number of om' members. The unfavourable state of 
commerce in London, during the years between 1841 and 
1844, caused a temporary falling-off in our numbers, which, 
for a moment, disturbed the calculation of our managers. 
From this I rejoice to say that we have now completely re- 
covered ; but we have not forgotten its past occurrence, and 
it serves as a salutary admonition to prudence and watchful- 
ness. 

Gentlemen, — T shall again remind you that this is our 
twenty-first birthday. Our season of youth is over, and 
we now pass into the period of maturity. We have taken 
rank, and are identified with the mind and intelligence 
of this great city ; be it ours to act in a manner worthy of 
our age and our calling. To those — whether they be many 
or few, I know not — who may still hold the ungenial preju- 
dice that there is an inherent incompatibility between a day 
of industry in the counting-house, and an evening of study 
in the lecture-room, the class-room, or the library — we must 
continue to present the best of all refutations, in the lives 
and behaviour of our members. To those, on the other hand, 
whose sentiments are more generous and exalted, who esteem 
an enlightened population a greater glory than splendid 
edifices, and immeasurable capital, and who account it an 
honour to London to interweave the threads of literature and 
science with the staple of a commercial and professional 
life ; to these minds, we offer ourselves with confidence as 
auxiliaries and instruments, prepared to justify our claim 



LONDON SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION. 193 

upon their fraternal sympathy. There always have been 
minds of this enlarged and kindly stamp : witness, among 
other things, the great amount of property bequeathed 
for educational purposes ; of which bequests some, indeed, 
have been ill-considered and capricious ; but many too have 
been dictated by the purest and most earnest solicitude for 
the diffusion of human knowledge. It is but too well known 
how many of these bequests have become misemployed or 
useless by negligence or fraud on the part of trustees ; how 
many of them too, even where the original purpose has been 
faithfully adhered to, have turned to nullity or mischief, 
because that purpose itself is no longer in harmony with 
the exigencies of a modern age. Let it be our task to 
prove to minds such as these, and to all who really have 
at heart the diffusion of literature and science in the City of 
London, that they can in no way better assist this inestimable 
object than by employing our ministration, and by seconding 
the voluntary efforts of our members. That which is given 
or bequeathed to us can neither lie useless nor become un- 
employed, for our financial proceedings are both well known 
and diligently watched by the members ; our purposes are of 
endless necessity, and can never grow obsolete, while a due 
flexibility as to the means of accomplishing them is insepar- 
able from our management. To-morrow, as well as to-day— 
in the times of our descendants as in our own — the life of the 
commercial and professional man will consist of a day of 
labour and an evening of leisure, which may be well or ill 
appropriated ; to-morrow, as well as to-day, the sociability of 
his nature may be enlisted in favour of the better employ- 
ment instead of the worse — in favour of mental progress and 
elevating recreations, and against both seductions and lassi- 
tude ; provided there be a brotherhood ready organized, com- 
manding as well as deserving his confidence, with whom he 
can mingle and fraternise. This organization, gentlemen, 
it is our pride to have created ; we shall bequeath it to our 
successors, together with an unfinished but noble task, which 
will never cease to require the exertions of an enlightened 

o 



194 PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 

benevolence, and never cease to bless them with the requiting 
consciousness of well doing. That which we have begun 
will be matured and perfected by others ; and our Institu- 
tion, destined for enduring mental wants, fed by the energies 
of a concentrated population, and sustained by the silent 
stream of human improvement, will pass from w^ell-spent 
youth to vigorous manhood, without being fated to reach the 
age of superannuation or decrepitude. 

[This Institution, on which Mr. Grote had lavished his 
support, in every form, during twenty years, declined in its 
prosperity from this date, owing to the altered habits of the 
class for whose benefit it had existed. The introduction of 
the ^'Omnibus," or cheap conveyance system, induced the 
young men engaged in business in the city to lodge in the 
suburbs, and the purposes of the London Scientific Institution 
ceased to offer the same inducements to become members.] ' 



ADDRESS 



ON 



DELIVERING THE PRIZES AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 



(ls< July, 1846.) 



o 2 



ADDRESS 



ON 



DELIVEEING THE PEIZES AT UNIYEESITY COLLEGE. 



Ladies and Gentlemen, — I should depart from tlie pre- 
cedents of former years, and I should do little justice either 
to your feelings or to my own, if I permitted this meeting to 
separate without saying a few words on the business which 
has just been auspiciously concluded. In regard to myself 
personally, I feel that the Council of University College 
have done me great honour by inviting me to preside at a 
ceremony so interesting in its character, and so beneficial in 
its tendencies. To be the instrument of placing in the 
hands of those students most distinguished for their ability 
and diligence that meed of honour which they have so fairly 
won, is a duty which no man can perform unmoved, and 
which the first men among us for position and intellect might 
well be proud to perform. 

In the success of University College I have always felt 
a sincere and lively interest, having taken a part, though a 
humble part, in its first foundation, and having had my name 
honoured by being commemorated with the foundation stone 
as a member of its earliest Council, I rejoice to find, from 
the Eeport read by Professor De Morgan, that the hold which 
the College had in former years acquired on the public 
mind, as a good and efficient place of instruction, has been 
fully sustained, that the number of pupils has increased, 
and that their conduct has been so creditable and exemplary. 
There was, indeed, one portion of the Eeport which occa- 



198 DELIVERY OF THE PEIZES 

sioned me the deepest regret — I mean that portion which 
announced the retirement of Professor Long from the Chair 
of Latin, a gentleman whose extensive erudition, dis- 
criminating criticism, and remarkable power of illustrating 
ancient literature and history, are so well known and so 
highly appreciated by every classical scholar amongst us. 

If it should appear to the more zealous friends of the College 
that its students are not so numerous as might have been 
expected from the number of affluent families in and near 
the metropolis, to whose children it offers • facilities for an 
elevated range of education such as they never before 
possessed, we must consider, on the other hand, that the 
College at its first formation had to encounter much un- 
candid hostihty, which has only of late become discredited 
and forgotten ; that it had nothing but the force of truth and 
its own intrinsic merit to rely upon, without any extraneous 
support from powerful and organised parties, either in Church 
or State. 

According to the temper and character of our population, 
the greatest amount of real merit will not dispense with this 
accessory advantage, of being known as an establishment 
fixed and settled — not dating from yesterday, but having a 
past to look back upon, traditional or historical. But this 
season of disadvantage and hostility is now overpast; the 
College has outlived the stigma of novelty, as well as the 
more unjust stigma of irreligion. It has now taken its rank 
as one of the great and permanent institutions of the metro- 
polis, and may fairly calculate on that steady increase, which 
real good management, distinguished teachers, and educa- 
tional efficiency, when they find a clear stage and no preju- 
dice, are sure to bring about. It can already appeal to the 
' Calendar of the University of London,' and to the award of 
scholarships and other prizes by the senate of that body, as 
an evidence of the proficiency of its students and the success 
of its professors ; and the proportion of prizes, obtained by 
its students from the award of the Universitv of London, will 
be tound not merely to satisfy, but greatly to surpass, all 



AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 199 

reasonable expectation. It will confide in the same results, 
and will require only the same fair and impartial trial, to 
ensure its future increase and extension. 

You, Gentlemen, the successful students whom the Ex- 
aminers have this day pronounced worthy to receive from my 
hands prizes and certificates of honour, you will require no 
words of mine to enhance the well-earned gratification which 
now fills your bosom. Your triumph has been one honestly 
achieved, which all will envy you, but which none can either 
impeach or disparage. Any man who reads over the ques- 
tions of the different professors in the examination papers, 
will see at once that the test of proficiency applied is not 
merely strict, but exceedingly trying and severe ; that the 
student who has answered such queries even fairly and 
tolerably, has profited much by the lessons of his professor ; 
but that he, whose answers merit a prize or a certificate of 
honour, has displayed that rare mastery of his subject, and 
that happy combination of laborious study beforehand with 
spontaneous and productive association at the moment of 
trial, which mark the rich and well-endowed mind, and give 
the amplest promise of future success and improvement. It 
will enhance in your view. Gentlemen, the value of your 
prizes, that your parents and near relatives will feel hardly 
less of satisfaction than yourselves, and that you are thus 
enabled to commence the task of discharging that debt of 
gratitude which parental affection has been so long imposing 
upon you. You will exult, and you have good reason to 
exult, in that which has just been achieved; but let the 
achievement of this day serve but as a prelude and an in- 
centive to yet further progress, and yet larger acquisitions, 
beyond. Let the prize which you now hold demonstrate 
to you the efficacy of steady, single-minded, well-directed 
application ; but let it at the same time prove to you that 
without a continuance of that application, no fresh rewards 
will await you. The triumphs of the youth are most valuable, 
as they presage and assist the future eminence of the adult 
man ; but in the one competition as well as in the other, it is 



200 DELIVERY OF THE PRIZES 

the same sterling quality of mind, the same devotion and 
concentration of purpose, the same docility to good teaching 
and to a good system, which wins the race. 

^ut it is not to those students alone, into whose hands I 
have had the gratification of delivering prizes and certificates 
of honour — it is not to them alone that I would address my 
observations. There are other students present whom per- 
sonally I am not permitted to know, but whose efforts have been 
less fortunate in the competition just terminated. To them, 
I fear, the acclamations which have welcomed the prizemen 
of this day will speak only of disappointed attempt ; yet I 
venture to remind them, that the augmies for the future are 
not merely consoling, but full of hope and promise. Though 
the prize can be only for one, and special notice only for 
a few, yet all those competitors who have diligently and 
seriously put forth their best efforts, may be well assured 
that every particle of that diligence will reap its due fruit 
and reward. They have dug the field carefully, without 
obtaining the pot of golden treasure there concealed ; but 
still, the field has been dug, and has been placed in condition 
to throw up a rich futm^e haiTest ; and in the fulness of time 
that harvest will be reaped. It is on this common ground 
that all the assiduous and earnest competitors for the prize, 
the defeated as well as the successful, may meet, with equal 
pride and confidence. In the great field of mental improve- 
ment there is room for all, without monopoly or exclusive 
possession to any one ; all, without exception, have advanced 
themselves to a higher grade of knowledge and capacity, and 
have qualified themselves for greater achievements and for 
ruder labom-s in future years. 

I have abeady remarked, that in estimating the difficulties 
with which the student has had to grapple, and the degree 
of proficiency which has been rewarded by the prize of this 
day, we are not confined simply to the declaration of the 
Examiner ; we have before us also the list of questions which 
have been propounded for answer, and we are thus as it were 
introduced into the class-room, so as to measure the range of 



AT UNIYEESITY COLLEGE. 201 

instruction embraced by the Professor. I venture to assert 
that no man can read those papers without feeling satisfied 
that a competent answer, given on the spot, to such queries, 
involves no common amount of intellectual resources and 
requirements. And when we go through the long series of 
these various lists, as they stand here printed in the suc- 
cessive pages of the little volume annually set forth by the 
College, we are presented with an aggregate idea, both 
encouraging and impressive, of the wide mental field which 
its entire course covers. To suffice for the intellectual neces- 
sities of the present day, theoretical as well as practical, 
enlarged and diversified as they now are, is no easy task. In 
former centuries, when the great universities now existing in 
Europe were founded, the range of science and literature 
open to be studied was very narrow ; but now, each separate 
branch has been widened, and several new branches have 
been put forth ; the mathematical and physical sciences 
have come to comprise an immeasurable heap of theorems 
and general facts, such as could not have been imagined even 
in the time of Lord Bacon : the true requirements of scientific 
method, the process of logic and induction, and the pheno- 
mena of psychology generally, have been revived and 
analysed anew by minds trained in these positive investiga- 
tions; the languages and literature of the ancient world, 
though not more extensive in respect of original documents 
than they were a century ago, have yet been examined by 
more piercing eyes, and have been found to suggest in- 
ferences which reproduce Kome and Athens under new 
points of view; comparative grammar and philology have 
brought languages, ancient and modern, distant and near, 
under one common analytical survey. Moreover, in addition 
to that which constitutes the stock of the scientific and 
literary man, there are the ministers of applied science, the 
practical chemist and the civil engineer, who have acquired, 
in the present industrial development of society, an import- 
ance such as those professions never before enjoyed; and 
though last mentioned, not least in importance, the school- 



202 DELIVERY OF THE PEIZES 

master of the present day has come to have his dignified 
mission correctly appreciated. Here are large intellectual 
exigencies, belonging to our age, and tending even to yet 
farther increase and expansion for the future. 

It has been the honourable aim of University College to 
adapt itself to that large measure of pure science and 
literature, as well as to that combination of science with 
practice, which the forward minds of our generation have 
marked out — to make provision for the legal and medical 
student, as well as for the classical and mathematical — to 
furnish appropriate aid and training to the schoolmaster, 
the civil engineer, and the practical chemist. The scheme 
includes classes w^hich had not before been made the subjects 
of special professorship ; and the largest, as well as the 
cheapest, range of instruction accessible in London, has thus 
been opened to the willing student, embracing both theory 
and practice. If, in providing so comprehensive a scheme 
of education, the administrators of the College have pre- 
sumed upon a wider extension of demand than is yet found 
to exist among the opulent and middling community of 
London — if they have anticipated intellectual appetites 
which have not as yet spread beyond chosen minds, and 
if some of their classes are therefore for the present scantily 
attended — I shall not affect to extenuate what they have 
done as an error or an imprudence. I shall rather glory in 
it as redounding to their honour, that they have set up an 
elevated standard of educational requirement, and that they 
have endeavoured to attract others to the eminence thus 
selected. While supplying to the full all the recognised 
subjects of instruction, they have tried to guide and to 
enlarge the public sentiment on this important matter, 
instead of contracting their own views so as to court only 
the maximum of immediate resort. I hope, and I believe, 
that they will succeed in diffusing among the public of 
London larger ideas on the proper measure of a citizen's 
education — in correcting that mistaken impatience with 
which parents, often under no pressure of necessity, abridge 



AT UNIYEESITY COLLEGE. 203 

those years requisite for their son's complete education, and 
hurry him into professional life a half-educated man : above 
all, I hope they will succeed in extending and deepening 
that love of knowledge, without which every man, let his 
station or prosperity in life be what they may, remains 
essentially mutilated in one of the most essential features of 
the human character. To bind men together by this com- 
mon love of knowledge, the primitive meaning of the word 
jpMlosojphy — a tie more ample and comprehensive than either 
political or theological party, to concentrate in the same 
establishment an array of distinguished teachers, with wide 
diversities of intellectual aptitude, yet organised and acting 
in concert towards the grand purpose of an all-sided educa- 
tion, to eliminate at the same time those seeds of discord 
which cause what is meant for mankind, to ba given up to 
sect or party, — this has been the animating scheme of 
University College, in which every exalted and patriotic 
mind will wish to it the fullest success. 

Upon you, Gentlemen, the students of the College, whom 
I now see around me, that success will mainly depend — upon 
every one of you more or less — but most of all upon those 
meritorious and conspicuous students to whom I have this 
day had the pleasure of delivering prizes and certificates 
of honour, as well as those for whom the like distinctions 
may be in reserve on future occasions similar to the present. 
It is from your conduct and character that the place in 
which you have received your education will be judged ; and 
among the tutelary motives which will be required, to guard 
you through the various trials of life, this consideration will 
doubtless have its fair and prominent place. I trust that 
the maxims which you have imbibed in University College 
— the distinguished men from whom you have received 
instruction, and the companions with whom you have re- 
ceived it — perhaps also the scene of this day and the few, 
but deep-felt, words which you now hear from this chair — 
may form recollections of no mean force in assisting all 
your best and most virtuous resolutions. That you will be 



204 DELIYEEY OF THE PRIZES, &c. 

estimable and honourable citizens, I shall not permit myself 
for a moment to doubt ; but I am farther sanguine enough 
to hope, not less for your own sakes than for that of the 
College in which you have been educated, that you will also 
be something more. The knowledge which your residence 
in University College has implanted in you, the literary and 
scientific associations which are now grouped in your minds, 
the habits of reading and application of which you have 
shown such conspicuous proof, are not mere artificial enforce- 
ments applied to your youth, destined to be thrown aside 
when you take up the active duties of a profession ; they are 
to be preserved and cultivated side by side with those duties, 
as the recreation, the treasure, the interior mental life, of 
the professional man. The man of regulated habits will 
suffice for both exigencies ; he will indeed account pecimiary 
independence and self-reliance to be an obligation not less 
imperative than pecuniary integrity, but the largest con- 
struction of this oblio:ation will still leave him leisure 
enough to preserve him from the misfortune — I had almost 
said, the disgrace — of an unlettered life — that unlettered 
life which has been characterised by more than one eminent 
man, as a life no better than death, " Yita sine Uteris mors 
est." I trust that the studies and intellectual associations 
of your College period will pass by unbroken tradition into 
youi' mature life, enlarged and improved, but never relin- 
quished; and while you thus procure for yourselves per- 
sonally a dignified existence and a source of perennial satis- 
faction, you will at the same time repay the care and labours 
of your teachers, you will confer an honour on University 
College, and vou will second in the most effective manner 
the noble purposes of its Founders, to raise the level, as well 
as to enlarge the spread of public education. 



REVIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS 



ON THE 



CREDIBILITY OF EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. 



{Edinlmrgh Beview^ 1856.) 



REVIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS 



OX THE 



CREDIBILITY OF EARLY ROMAN HISTORY.* 



Among the wide circle of historical readers, there are few 
who follow with satisfaction, and some who even repudiate 
with impatience, investigations into the evidence on which 
the narrative before them rests. Such investigations they 
regard as the special duty of the author. They desire only 
to know the results, set forth in a luminous and attractive 
manner, with suitable reflections. If they are perusing an 
animated narrative — adjusted to their notions of probability 
in respect to the succession of events, and accommodated to 
their ethical and sesthetical sentiments in its appreciation 
of characters and situations — they willingly hail the matter 
as so much added to their previous knowledge. A moderate 
show of references suffices to make them presume that the 
author has collated the necessary evidence and elicited from 
it a true or credible history. No such presumption indeed 
will arise, if he contradicts their notions of probability, or 
adopts canons of ethical and sesthetical appreciation depart- 
ing from theirs — if he describes sequences to them unex- 
pected, or introduces supernatural forces on occasions which 
they deem inappropriate — if he disparages persons and insti- 
tutions admirable in their eyes. The shock to their feelings 



* Inquiry into the Credibility of the Early Boman History. By 
Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Bart. 2 vols. 8vo. 1855. 



208 REVIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS 

will then certainly raise doubts, and may perhaps provoke to 
examination of the original authorities. But except under 
such a stimulus, the idea of mistrusting the sufficiency of the 
author's proofs is one which neither suggests itself spon- 
taneously to them, nor finds ready admission when suggested 
by others. The degree to which an historian can count 
upon easy faith, depends upon the pre-established harmony of 
sentiment between him and his readers, enforced by his own 
powers of style and exposition. 

Both the appreciating sentiments, and the received mea- 
sure of internal credibility, vary materially from age to age, 
and from nation to nation : but subject to this condition, the 
description above given applies to historical readers gene- 
rally. For the large majority of them, indeed, the fact 
cannot be otherwise. They have no time — to pass over other 
disqualifications — even for hearing all the distinct matters of 
proof; much less for weighing and comparing them, for 
hunting out what may have been overlooked^ or for studying 
the process of combination and elimination which the his- 
torian's task requires from him. Such labour must be per- 
formed by one or a few for the benefit of many. And the 
security which the many possess for its being faithfully per- 
formed, arises not so much from their own demand, as from 
the emulation and competition of historical students them- 
selves. The probability of eventual animadversion, from a 
few censors themselves conversant with the original sources, 
is a motive almost indispensable to keep the historian up 
to the proper pitch, throughout his long and often irksome 
preparations. By such censorship the comparison of his 
narrative with the sum total of attainable evidence becomes 
forced upon general readers, little disposed of themselves to 
originate the question. The analytical or dissecting process 
of criticism serves as a valuable control on the synthetical 
and constructive effort of the historian ; who, however con- 
scientious, is under temptation to aim too exclusively at 
those charms of pictorial execution without which large 
popularity is hardly attainable. 



ON EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. 209 

Of this analytical process, the work of Sir George Lewis, 
now before us, affords an admirable specimen. It exhibits 
a complete and intelligent mastery of the original authorities, 
a full knowledge of what has been done by former critics, 
with an equitable spirit of appreciation towards them, 
and a familiarity with historical research, modern as well as 
ancient. It is full of copious illustration from the kindred 
subject of Grecian antiquity. While rich in premises, it is 
sparing in conclusions, and strictly exigent as to sufficiency 
of proof — the work of one who, though seeking earnestly for 
truth, is not ashamed to confess that he cannot find it, and 
to rest in such acknowledgment of ignorance, where there 
is no evidence, at once literal and cogent, to enforce some 
positive affirmation. We recognise in Sir George Lewis the 
precise antithesis of that vehement impulse of divination, 
confident alike both in belief and in disbelief, which so often 
carried away the vigorous intellect of Niebuhr. If indeed 
there be any single purpose, prominent and peculiar, in a 
work of so much breadth and learning as this ' Enquiry,' it 
is to protest against the Niebuhrian licence of substitution 
and reconstruction. The book is not, and does not profess 
to be, a history of Eome ; but we are mistaken if it does not 
tend to influence materially the composition of future Eoman 
histories. Like the critical philosophy of Kant, as con- 
trasted with the antecedent dogmatic philosophy of Leibnitz 
and Wolf, it is a magazine of arms on the negative side of 
the question. The historian will find brought before him, 
more fully than in any previous work, the problems with 
which he has to grapple, the means of solving them, and 
the amount of success hitherto attained by employing those 
means ; lastly, the contradictions and inconsistencies which 
the original authorities, scanty as they are, present in 
abundance. 

Sir George Lewis reviews the Eoman history from its 
earliest times down to the fall of the Eepublic, about forty 
vears before the Christian era. Upon the subsequent events 
durin^ the Empire, he does not touch. Counting upwards 

r 



210 REVIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS 

from the fall of the Eepiiblic to the received date of the 
capture of Troy and the migration of JEneas, there was a 
space of about 1140 years. Through this long antiquity 
Augustus and his contemporaries looked up to jiEneas and 
the exiles from Troy, mythical ancestors of the Julian and 
other p:reat Eoman families. The series of years is here 
distributed into several periods, vrith the evidences, primary 
or secondary, discordant or harmonious, indicated and appre- 
ciated. 

In writing a history of Eome, the historian must neces- 
sarily begin from the beginning; and the difficulty is, in 
this as well as in other inquiries, to find a beginning. He 
must grope his way for some time nearly in the dark, until 
at length he emerges into twilight, and into a slowly im- 
proving daylight. In the process of criticism this order is 
reversed. Sir George Lewis takes his point of departure 
from the latest period. Proceeding backward from the fell 
of the Kepublic to the invasion of Italy by Pyrrhus in 
281 B.C., he exhibits a full catalogue of the historical pro- 
ductions of the Eoman world during: the last two centuries 
before the Christian era. 

The catalogue is a very respectable one ; and though nearly 
all the works are lost, we have notices remaining which 
inform us of their general contents and style of execution. 
Julius Caesar and Sallust, comparatively recent as they are, 
must be named as the oldest Eoman writers from whom any 
entire historical compositions remain. Livy was born B.C. 59, 
and died at the age of seventy-six. His history extended 
from the earliest times of Eome to the death of Drusus, 
nine years before the Christian era. Between him and Cato 
the Censor (the earliest Eoman historian who composed in his 
own language, about 150 B.C.) the following historians are 
known to us by name and by a few fragments : — Calpurnius 
Piso Frugi, Cassius Hemina, Caius Fannius, L. Attius, Caius 
Sempronius Tuditanus, Lucius Coelius Antipater, Cnaeus Gel- 
lius, Sextus Gellius, Aulus Gellius, Clodius Licinus, Publius 
Sempronius Asellio, Marcus iEmilius Scaurus, Publius Eu- 



ON EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. 211 

tilius Eufus, Quintus Lutatius Catulus, Caius Licinius Macer 
Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius, Quintus Valerius Antias, 
Lucius Otacilius Pilitus, Lucius Cornelius Sylla, Lucius Cor- 
nelius Sisenna, Quintus ^lius Tubero, &c. 

Besides these and other historians in the Latin language, 
there were several Romans, some of illustrious position, who 
composed historical works in Greek. Among them there 
were the two earliest of all Roman historians — Quintus 
Fabius Pictor and Lucius Cincius Alimentus, both of them in 
high public position and active service throughout the Second 
Punic War. Cincius was even taken prisoner by Hannibal, 
from whom he learnt various facts afterwards reported in 
his history. 

Ennius (b.c. 239-169) and Nsevius, a generation older, 
though poets, are also historical witnesses. Ennius, the 
first composer of hexameter verses in Latin, wrote a sort of 
metrical chronicle, called ' Annales,' of the affairs of Rome 
from Romulus and Remus down to his own time. Nsevius 
wrote a similar chronicle of the First Punic War (in which 
he had himself served), employing the native Latin metre, 
Saturnian verse. 

Passing to Greeks : the life of Polybius is comprised be- 
tween B.C. 210-120, and his forty books of universal history 
(of which only five remain entire) included the period from 
B.C. 220 down to B.C. 146, the date of the capture of Carthage 
and Corinth, which events Polybius witnessed. Sosilus and 
Silenus, contemporary with and companions of Hannibal, 
wrote histories of the Second Punic War. Philinus of Agri- 
gentum described the First Punic War, with which he was 
contemporary, in a spirit blamed by Polybius as unfair 
towards the Romans. Lastly, both Hieronymus of Cardia 
and Timaeus of Tauromenium, contemporaries of Pyrrhus, 
described his war against the Romans. Indeed Pyrrhus him- 
self seems to have composed memoirs of his own operations. 

These are the earliest portions of Roman affairs, described 
by historians either actually or nearly contemporaneous. 
Besides these histories, there existed in the last two cen- 

P 2 



212 EEYIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS 

turies of the Eepublic, many orations spoken on various 
public occasions by magistrates and senators, and preserved 
as well as edited by the speakers themselves. Among the 
orations, the oldest was that of Appius the Blind, who being 
conducted in his old age into the Senate when the question 
of peace or war with Pyrrhus was under discussion, deter- 
mined his countrymen to reject the propositions of peace 
(B.C. 280). In the time of Cicero, a large collection of these 
miscellaneous public harangues existed. He had read no 
less than a hundred and fiftv from the elder Cato alone, and 
he indicates Cornelius Cethegus (who died in b. c. 196, 
shortly after the Second Punic War) as the earliest Eoman 
distinguished for eloquence. 

It is to this later period of the Eepublic that Sir George 
Lewis devotes his first two chapters — among the most in- 
structive in the work. He sets before us the reallv historical 
ao:e of Eome — the assemblas^e of all the authoi^ from whom 
we derive (mediately or immediately) our knowledge of 
Eoman events ; and he appreciates, as far as is practicable 
under the loss of their works, their scope, manner, and point 
of view. 

The following summary deserves attention both in itself 
and as furnishing a standard of comparison for the evidences 
of the earlier age of Eome : — 

" If we trace the Roman history back from the dictatorship of 
Julius C^sar, we find that its events were fully recorded by intel- 
ligent, trustworthy, and well-informed contemporary writers, up to 
the beginning of the GfiUic war of 225 B.C. Up to that period, the 
majority of these historians were native Eomans, though some of 
them, and particularly those of the earlier time, T\Tote in Greek. 
For the period of thirty-nine years between the beginning of the 
fii'st Punic War and the Gallic War (264-225, B.C.) there were no 
native historians who were personal witnesses of the events of the 
day : but they lived with the generation who were actors in them, 
and were able to obtain their information from sources of unques- 
tionable authenticity. The First Punic. War was narrated by one 
Greek at least who lived during its progress ; and probably other 
Sicilians at ^^ time wrote its historv. 



ON EAELY KOMAN HISTORY. 213 

" It is true that the native historians of Eome from Fabius Pictor 
down to Claudius Quadrigarius and Valerius Antias, did not hold 
a high rank as artists ; that their manner was in general dry, stiff, 
and jejune ; that they were deficient in philosophical spirit ; and 
that their historical style resembled rather that of a mediaeval 
chronicle, or of such writers as Holinshed or Stow, than the work 
of Thucydides, which they might have imitated ; or the works of 
Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus, which their own literature afterwards 
produced. Cicero will not even allow them the name of historians. 
So inferior were they to the Greek writers iij that line of com- 
position, that he regards them as mere annalists or memoir- 
writers — as mere mechanical registrars of facts, without any claim 
to the higher merits of the historian. According to the Koman 
standard of history (he says), the only requisite is, that the writer 
should tell the truth : the style of his composition is immaterial. 
They studied only to express their meaning in the smallest num- 
ber of words consistent with being understood. Their model was, 
the official annals of the year, kept by the Pontifex Maximus. 
Cicero himself wished to produce a history which should equal 
those of the Greek writers ; as Virgil attempted to rival Homer, 
and Horace the Greek lyric poets. He looks upon history chiefly 
as a work of art, and as a composition fitted for an orator." 
(Vol. i. p. 40.) 

After noticing criticisms from Sallust, Velleius Paterculus, 
and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, coinciding in spirit with 
those of Cicero, Sir George Lew^is proceeds : — 

" But though the series of historical writers who have been 
enumerated, from Fabius and Cincius down to Sylla and Macer, 
were not distinguished for any literary or philosophical excellence 
— though they were not artists in history — yet they were trust- 
worthy witnesses respecting the events of their own time. They 
were most of them men conversant with public affairs both civil 
and military — who had filled high offices and sat in the senate — 
who had in some cases been actors in the events which they nar- 
rated — and who by their social position, had access to good 
information and enlightened opinions respecting the political 
events of their time." (Vol. i. p. 43.) 

The loss, almost total, of these later historians — combined 
with the preservation of so many details respecting the early 



214 EEYIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS 

Eoman history in the extant books of Livy and Dionysius 
— fostesr an involuntary illusion in the reader's mind, that 
the earlier periods were both better known and more inter- 
esting to the Eomans themselves, than the later. This is a 
mistake pointed out by Sir George Lewis : — 

" They (Fabius, Cincius, and the other historians) were concise 
in the early periods, and full in the times of which they had per- 
sonal experience. Their main purpose was to write recent and 
contemporary history. Even Livy, whom, on account of the acci- 
dental preservation of the earlier books and loss of the later books, 
of his history, we are accustomed to regard as an antiquarian com- 
piler, was in truth regarded in quite a different light, when his 
entire work was extant. The principal object of Livy was to relate 
the events of the period immediately preceding his own life, and 
partly contemporary with it. The books of his history beginning 
with 103, and extending to 142, being nearly a third part of the 
entire work, were coincident with his own lifetime. He himself, 
in his preface, supposes his readers to be more solicitous to read 
the history of the civil wars, than to dwell on the early period." 
(Vol. i. p. U.) 

The superior interest felt by Livy and others in the events 
of the later Eepublic is not difficult to explain. Those events 
surpassed prodigiously, in magnitude and in awe-striking 
accompaniments, the wars and internal disputes of Rome in 
her earlier days of comparative feebleness, — 

" Vincere cum Yeios posse, laboris erat." 

It is these antecedent events, recorded in the first ' Decad ' 
of Livy*, which form the special subject of Sir George 
Lewis's * Enquiry into the Credibility of the Early Roman 
History.' We have approached them, as he has done, by 
an upward march through the later events ; because we con- 



* The first Decad of Livy ends with the Consulship of Fabius 
Maximus Gurges and Junius Brutus Scasva, in B.C. 292. His 
eleventh book (now lost) brought the third Samnite War to a 
conclusion. His twelfth book (also lost) described the beginning 
of the war of Pyrrhus against the Eomans (b.c. 280). 



ON EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. 215 

sider it an important feature in his method, to pass from 
the more known to the less known, and to appreciate the 
reporting historians before he begins to weigh and measure 
the evidences open to their inspection. 

We find in Livy and other writers a history of Eome for 
472 years earlier than Pyrrhus ; from B. c. 753, the period 
assigned for the foundation of the city. This narrative which 
we read, — or something like it, though with many differences 
of detail, — was received during the literary ages of Eome, 
and appealed to as matter of popular belief by poets and 
orators. Now the question is. what authorities had Fabius 
and Cincius, the earliest Eoman historians (who flourished 
during the Second Punic War), and those who came after 
them, for composing the history of five centuries anterior to 
themselves ? 

Sir George Lewis sets forth the various hypotheses which 
have been advanced as answers to this question. He exa- 
mines with much care (Vol. i. 155, seg^.), the real compre- 
hension and evidentiary value of what were called the 
Pontifical Annals — ' Annales Maximi,' — kept by the Chief 
Pontiff from an early period down to the Pontificate of P. 
Mucins in B.C. 121. The pontiff caused various notable 
incidents to be inscribed on a whitened board and publicly 
posted up. What these incidents were, we are very imper- 
fectly informed ; but as far as we can make out, they were 
events susceptible of a religious interpretation, which called 
upon the pontiff to prescribe some expiatory ceremony for 
appeasing the wrath of the gods, — events such as dearth, 
pestilence, earthquakes, eclipses, prodigies of various kinds.* 
Livy, who occasionally mentions incidents of this character, 
is likely to have derived them, directly or indirectly, from 
the Pontifical Annals. The prodigies, such as divine voices, 



* A fragment of Cato says (ap. Aul. Gell. ii. 28), " Non lubet 
scribere, quod in tabula apud Pontificem Maximum est, quotiens 
annona cara est, quotiens lunae aut solis lumini caligo aut quid 
obstiterit," &c. 



216 KEVIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS 

speaking oxen, rain of blood or of flesh, &c., are more dis- 
tinctly traceable to contemporary record than any other 
events in the early Koman history. That these pontifical 
annals were meagre, and destitute of all information on 
public matters, there is every reason to believe. At what 
precise date they commenced, and even whether there was 
matter registered in every successive year, we are ignorant. 
But it seems certain that there can have been no continuous 
preservation of them for the time anterior to the capture of 
Eome by the Gauls (b.c. 390). 

These pontifical tablets were all that early Eome possessed 
in the nature of annals prior to Fabius Pictor and Cincius. 
Sir George Lewis justly censures the laxity with which 
Niebuhr, Arnold, and other historians, appeal to certain invi- 
sible witnesses, called The Old Annals, The Ancient Annalists^ 
some Old Annalist, &c., as authorities for facts between B.C. 
500-300 (see numerous examples cited, vol. i. p. 93, seq,). 
Nothino; can be more misleadino- than this lani>;uao:e. There 
existed no such annals (except the pontifical tablets) of an 
earlier date than B.C. 210. And when Livy says, as we 
sometimes find, *^ Invenio in quibusdam annalibus," &c., he 
must mean authors of this date, or later. To him these 
authors were ancient, very ancient — at the distance of 150 
years. Nay, we even find Cicero a generation earlier than 
Livy, speaking of Cato as extremely ancient {loerveterem).* 
But the vague allusions of Niebuhr and Arnold suggest to 
readers the erroneous belief that there were Eoman annalists, 
contemporary with the seige of Veii or the Decemvirate, from 
whom Livy's statements, or a modified version of them at 
least, are borrowed. 

Though there existed no continuous history or annals 
during the first two centuries of the Eepublic, yet there 
were undoubtedly throughout all that period detached me- 
morials : contemporary registrations of notable isolated facts 



* Cicero, Brutus, 15. 61. " Earn nos ut perveterem habemus," &c. 
(i.e. Cato). 



ON EAKLY ROMAN HISTORY. 217 

— treaties with foreign states — laws (such as the Twelve 
Tables) — decrees of the senate — inscriptions on brazen plates, 
or on linen cloth — commemoration of the magistracies of 
particular men, and even partial lists of their succession — 
precedents kept by the scribes or secretaries who carried on 
the routine of business in the magisterial offices of the 
consuls, censors, and praetors. The earliest known inscription, 
commemorating any public event — the treaty between Rome 
and Carthage, seen by Polybius — dated very shortly after 
the expulsion of the kings. Even the earliest times of the 
Republic were thus not destitute of documents ; but none 
such can be traced during the regal period. Sir George 
Lewis, in his fifth chapter, reviews and estimates these sources 
of Roman history. They were (to cite his words in another 
place, vol. ii. p. 361.) " detached notices and fragments of evi- 
dence, but not a continuous narrative ; they were not the 
work of an historian, and thev did not of themselves form a 
history of the period : there was a substratum of notation, but 
not an authentic narrative of events." 

This '' substratum of notation " can be traced distinctly 
to the earliest times of the Republic ; but no history was 
erected upon it by any Roman until Fabius Pictor, three 
centuries afterwards. Nevertheless, the history of Rome, as 
we read it in Dionysius and Livy (both of them much later 
than Fabius), contains, not merely a string of naked facts, 
such as might be noted on brazen plates, or on whitened 
boards, but also abundance of incidents related with minute 
details, animated descriptions, precise relation of the words 
and thoughts of the principal actors. It was in the same 
copious and circumstantial manner that Fabius and suc- 
ceeding annalists recounted the family tragedies of the Roman 
kings, as well as many of the wars and internal political 
contests which marked the first two centuries of the 
Republic. From whence then did Fabius and his suc- 
cessors obtain the knowledge of these details, so long anterior 
to their own time? Not certainly from the "substratum of 
notation : " which, even if it had been systematic and con- 



218 EEYIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS 

tinuous, instead of being merely disjointed and occasional, 
could have supplied nothing beyond bare and brief facts. 
We must here look for sources of information distinct from 
contemporary brass, wood, or linen. 

To find a source for these detailed incidents, many of 
them highly poetical and interesting, Niebuhr contended for 
the existence of early ballad-poems, or epic lays, anterior to 
Nseyius and Ennius. Dr. Arnold and Mr. Macaulay have 
adopted the same hypothesis : and the beautiful * Lays of 
Ancient Rome,' composed by the latter, will imprint it on 
the recollection of every En2:lish reader. Sir Geor^-e Lewis 
examines the point at considerable length (Vol. i. pp. 
212-38). Niebuhr distributes large portions of the Eoman 
history, from Eomulus down to the Gallic conflagration, 
into various epic lays ; which, however, he supposes to have 
been composed long after the events to which they referred, 
chiefly about B.C. 320-300 ; and to have been once extremely 
popular, though they were discredited and lost after Ennius 
had introduced Greek metres, and after the Latin poetry 
became assimilated to the Greek. 

That ballads were sung among the early Romans, we may 
readily presume. The fact is common to almost all coun- 
tries. But that there existed poems of considerable bulk, 
embodying a large proportion of that which we now read as 
Livy's prose, is by no means to be presumed without proof ; 
though, if the fact could be proved, it would be an interest- 
ing accession to our knowledge. Now no such poems were 
known to the Romans of the historical ag:e. It is true that 
the incidents themselves are often of a cast highly romantic 
and poetical ; and upon this ground chiefly the inference is 
founded, that they must have been derived from poems. But 
such inference is shown by Sir George Lewis to be un- 
warranted. Licidents of a romantic character may be real, 
and are accepted as such if properly attested. The career 
of Alexander the Great is as full of romance as that of 
Coriolanus : the suicide of Cleopatra is intrinsically not less 
poetical than that of Lucretia ; while that of the Emperor 



ON EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. 219 

Otho is more sublime and impressive than either. Moreover, 
the early Eoman history, though partly poetical in its 
incidents, is in still larger measure wholly unpoetical : the 
ballad-theory, even if admitted, accounts for the smaller 
portion only ; not for the larger, nor yet for the mixture 
of the two. Lastly, Niebuhr supposes that the incidents of 
these ballad-poems were generally fictitious : but if this be 
granted, the hypothesis of poems becomes unnecessary : the 
origin of fictitious stories may be suflBciently explained by 
oral tradition alone, without any poems, written or un- 
written : — 

" There is nothing in the fictitious part of the early Eoman 
history which may not be accounted for, by supposing that it con- 
sists of legends floating in the popular memory, composed of 
elements partly real but chiefly unreal, and moulded into a con- 
nected form as they passed from mouth to mouth ; the picturesque, 
interesting, or touching incidents being selected, and the whole 
grouped and coloui*ed by the free pencil of tradition. Even these 
legends would be improved and polished by the successive histo- 
rians through whose hands they passed, after they had been once 
reduced to writing. Such an origin would account for their poetical 
features without supposing them derived from a metrical original 
— from a poem in the proper sense of the word." (Vol. i. p. 221.) 

" The theory of Niebuhr is unsupported by evidence 

sufficient to prove its truth; and, even if it were proved, would 
afford little or no assistance towards solving the most difficult and 
important problem of this history. That there were poems of some 
sort composed in the Latin language, before the time of Livius, 
Naevius, and Ennius, cannot be doubted : the prohibition of defa- 
matory verses, in the laws of the Twelve Tables, is an undoubted 
proof of the practice of the poetic art among the Eomans in the 
year b.c. 450. But all positive evidence and all arguments from 
analogy and probability conspire to prove, that the Latin language 
at this time was in a rude, uncultivated state, unsuited to poetical 
treatment ; that the old native Saturnian metre, which Horace 
stigmatises as imfit for the contact of civilised life, was rough, 
inharmonious, and scarcely distinguishable from prose ; and that 
the early Komans, however poetical may have been the ideas in 
which they conceived their ancient annals and the exploits of their 
forefathers, were principally occupied with military pursuits, and 



220 EEYIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS 

bestowed little thouglit on poetry or tlie fine arts " (Vol. i. 
p. 235.) 

Niebuhr's ' Theory of Epic Lays/ therefore, cannot be 
accepted as the source of any considerable portion of the 
details of early Roman history. For these details no source 
can be assigned except oral statements and traditions ; many 
of them, doubtless, current in the great families, respecting 
their distinguished ancestors (^vhose waxen images were 
preserved, and carried in funeral processions), and first 
embodied in a written continuous history by Fabius and his 
successors. Upon " the substratum of notation " was thus at 
length erected a fabric of history. 

" There was a eontinuons list of magistrates, more or less com- 
plete and authentic, ascending to the commencement of the consular 
government ; from the burning of the city, there was a series of 
meagre official annals, kept by the chiqf pontiff; many ancient 
treaties and texts of laws, including the Twelve Tables, were pre- 
served, together with notes of ancient usages and rules of customary 
law, civil and religious, recorded in the books of the pontiffs and 
some of the civil magistrates ; and these documentary sources of 
history, which furnished merely the dry skeleton of a narrative, 
were clothed with flesh and muscle by the addition of various 
stories handed down from preceding times by oral tradition. Some 
assistance may have been derived from popular songs, and still 
more from family memoirs ; but there is nothing to make it pro- 
bable that private families began to record the deeds of their dis- 
tinguished members before any chronicler had arisen for the events 
which interested the commonwealth as a whole." (Vol. i. p. 243.) 

"We think that this is a correct statement of the means of 
information possessed by the Eoman annalists of B.C. 210, 
and later, when they undertook to draw up a history of 
Eome, beginning with B.C. 753, and even earlier ; 472 years 
before the war with Pyrrhus, and 540 years before their own 
times. It is to be remarked that the ^^ notation " ascends 
only to the commencement of the Eepublic ; but the details 
are carried 244 years higher, throughout the kingly period, 
and even more. The whole of the kingly period is an 



ON EAKLY KOMAN HISTORY. 221 

assemblage of oral details, uncontrolled by any ascertainable 
notation. 

Having laid down these principles as to the sources of 
early Eoman history, Sir George Lewis illustrates them by 
analysing the received narrative, from the earliest times to 
the landing of Pyrrhus in Italy. He distributes it into six 
portions : — 1. The primitive history and ethnology of Italy. 
2. The settlement of .^neas in Italy. 3. The Alban king- 
dom and the foundation of Rome. 4. The period of the 
seven kings of Rome. 5. The period from the expulsion of 
the kings to the capture of the city by the Gauls. 6. The 
period from the capture of the city by the Gauls to the war 
with Pyrrhus. 

" These six periods (observes Sir G. Lewis, p. 266) it will 
be convenient to investigate separately ; as their historical 
character, and the proportion in which fact and fiction are 
mixed, differ considerably." The distinction here drawn, as 
to proportions of fact and fiction, appears to us true only 
respecting the last three of the six periods, — hardly true 
respecting the first three. 

It is to the two last periods, comprising together the early 
history of the Republic, that we must devote all the remarks 
which our space will allow : but we cannot pass over the four 
first without stating generally, that Sir G. Lewis has conse- 
crated to them two chapters of abundant erudition with an 
excellent running commentary. In perusing the multifarious 
discrepancies, the fanciful adventures, and the licence of de- 
tailed assertion, which these chapters set forth, we see what 
Fabius, Cinciiis, Cato, &c., with their full religious and pa- 
triotic faith, were content to accept as their national history. 
We can take measure of their critical judgment and canon of 
credibility. There was, however, a considerable difi*erence in 
this point between Fabius and Cato on the one hand, and 
writers a century or a century and a half later (such as 
Cicero, Atticus, Varro, Livy, &c.) on the other. The latter 
not only censure the chronological ignorance of their pre- 
decessors {e.g. the description of Numa as a disciple of Pytha- 



222 REVIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS 

goras), but also seek to rationalise (much to the displeasure 
of Dionysius of Halicarnassus), the miraculous stories and 
divine interventions — such as the suckling of Eomulus and 
Eemus by a she-wolf, and the interviews of Kuma with the 
nymph Egeria (Vol. i. pp. 402-48).* 

In Chapter xii., occupying about the first half of Sir George 
Lewis's second volume, the Koman history is analysed, from 
the expulsion of the kings to the burning of the city : an in- 
terval of about 120 years (b.c. 510-390). Its earliest portion 
includes the wars carried on by the nascent Eepublic against 
the Tarquinian exiles ; who were aided, first by the Etruscan 
Porsena, next by the Latins mustered in arms at Eegillus, 
and there totally defeated. These incidents are given with 
many details, often highly picturesque and interesting. 
They are supposed by Niebuhr to have formed the subject 
of one of the epic lays : but even if this were granted, we 
must suppose something like them to have floated probably 
in the form of oral narrative or legend. Yet Pliny had seen 
a treaty between Porsena and the Eomans, whereby the 



* It appears that Yarro and his immediate j^redecessors and 
contemporaries were the first to bring into historical notice many 
memorials then existing of Eoman registered antiquity which had 
been unknown to, or overlooked by, preceding annalists, such as 
Fabius and Cato. The " substratum of notation," composed as it 
was of unconnected fragments, became thus more fully explored 
and better understood in b.c. 50, than it had been a century before, 
in B.C.- 150. Hence arise in part the discrepancies recited by 
Livy and Dionysius. The writers of the Yarronian age differed 
from their predecessors because they had consulted new matters 
of evidence. 

This comparison of the age of Yarro with that of Fabius is 
much insisted on in a recent work of learning and research pub- 
lished last year at Basle, L. 0. Brocker, Untersuchungen uber die 
Glnuhwurdigkeit der alt-BdmiscJien Gescliiclite. Brocker notes espe- 
cially that the Yarronians treated the Eegal period more briefly, and 
the Eepublican period far more copiously, than Fabius and Cato, 
the new matters of evidence relating apparently to the Eepublic 
only. See the second of Brocker's Ahhandhngen, pp. 41-82. 



ON EABLY ROMAN HISTORY. 223 

latter became bound to the humiliating condition of not 
using iron for any other purposes than those of agriculture. 
This treaty cannot be reconciled with the accounts which we 
read of the wars between the Eomans and Porsena. The 
oral details and the " notation " are here at variance. 

While setting forth the ancient statements respecting 
these wars, with his usual fulness of reference, Sir George 
Lewis touches on the first nomination of a dictator at Rome. 
That Titus Lartius was the first dictator, and that he was 
appointed during one of the years not long preceding the 
battle of Regillus, is affirmed both by Livy and by Dionysius. 
As to the precise year they do not agree : nor does Liyy 
give many antecedent particulars — not knowing which to 
prefer among the dissentient accounts before him. Diony- 
sius, however, — to whom, as a Greek, the dictatorial office 
seemed probably more striking and peculiar than it did to 
Livy, — works up one of these narratives at great length : — 

" Dionysius g^Ves the detailed account of the dictatorship, and 
of the appointment of the first dictator, as if it was as well ascer- 
tained as the history of the creation of the first presidency of the 
India Board, and the appointment of the first president, under the 
administration of Mr. Pitt. He knows not only the causes which 
led to the creation of the office, but also the various stages of the 
proceedings, the debates in the senate, the speeches of the senators, 
the motives of their policy, the mutual feelings of delicacy, and all 
the other material circumstances of the transaction. 

"The long and detailed account of the creation of the 

office of dictator appears to belong to a class of fictions, of which we 
meet with many examples in the early Eoman history, and which we 
may call institutional legends. The whole narrative of Dionysius 
is plainly a political drama, invented to explain the very peculiar 
institution of the Eoman dictatorship : the officer being supreme 
and absolute, although for a limited time ; the senate being judges 
of the necessity of the appointment, and the appointment being 
made by one of the consuls." (Vol. ii. pp. 27-46.) 

Among the Eoman " institutional legends " — which, let it 
be observed, even if Niebuhr's epic lays existed, can hardly 
have been embodied in them, and can be referred to no other 



224 REVIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS 

source than oral narrative — one of the most curious is, the 
first secession of the Plebs, and the first appointment of tri- 
bunes of the people (b. c. 492 ), about seven years after the 
earliest dictator. The recital is set forth and examined by- 
Sir George Lewis pp. 62-88. It is given in minute detail 
and with long harangues intermixed, by Dionysius. Livy 
tells the story more briefly. Cicero and other authors touch 
on it incidentally. 

The Roman annalists, in recounting the circumstances 
of this event (more than 250 years prior to the earliest 
of them ) can have had no other authority than oral in- 
formants. In analysing the narrative, Sir George Lewis 
farther seeks to show that the internal discrepancies and 
inconsistencies are so serious as to exclude the possibility of 
any better authority. Now we cannot think that this latter 
part of his case is fully made out. It seems to us that 
he overrates the magnitude of the discrepancies ; that they, 
are neither inexplicable, nor greater than might well have 
occurred between witnesses all contemporaneous. 

It is true that Dionysius and Livy differ as to the nature 
of the treaty which the senate were obliged to conclude with 
the exasperated plebeians, after the latter had seceded to the 
Mons Sacer. 

" According to Dionysius, the main subject of the negotiation 
was a Seisachtheia, for the relief of the plebeian debtors. When 
this measure had been conceded, the institution of the tribunes was 
suggested by Lucius Junius Brutus, as an additional guarantee ; 
and this after-thought was made the subject of a separate nego- 
tiation. Livy is entirely silent as to any arrangement about a 
remission of debts, and describes the compact as limited to the 
institution of tribunes. Cicero agrees with Livy, and considers 
the tribunate as the sole result of the first secession."^ (Vol. ii. 
p. 77.) 

We admit that Liyy says nothing about a remission of 
debts. But we contend that this is an omission on his part : 
that his own narrative implies virtually the fact of such 
remission having been granterl, so as to be hardly consistent 



ON EAELY ROMAN HISTORY. 225 

with itself, unless upon that hypothesis. He had told us 
explicitly that the cause which drove the plebeians to the 
desperate measure of secession,* was, the cruel suffering in- 
flicted upon the great multitude of them by debt, and by the 
law which made the insolvent debtor the slave of his creditor: 
that the liberal patricians had been doing their utmost, 
though in vain, to procure for them relief from such suffering : 
and that the very last act which precipitated the secession 
was, the abdication of the popular dictator (Valerius) in 
disgust, because he could not prevail on the senate to grant 
any relief. Assuming this state of things, how can it be 
believed that the plebeians, when they became masters of 
the situation and forced the senate to offer terms, demanded 
no redress of this severe and present grievance ; and that 
they were satisfied with the prospective benefit to be 
derived from appointing two tribunes, about whom before not 
a word had been said ? To confirm our view — that Livy's 
own account requires us to assume a remission of debts as 
having been granted — we may add, that after having dwelt 
so much upon the pressure of debt before the secession, he 
says nothing more about it after the secession : the grievance 
disappears for a long series of years. 

Turning to Dionysius, we find that his account is con- 
sistent, complete, and natural. The plebeians had seceded 
on account of debt : the first concession whereby the intimi- 
dated senate try to pacify them is a promise of relief from 
debt : and with this the plebeians are so overjoyed that they 
are not disposed of themselves to demand more. But their 
long-sighted leader, L. Junius, reminds them that their only 
guarantee for the observance of the promise is, that they 
should have tribunes of their own appointment, and with 
powers adequate to their protection. The tribunes are thus 
(to use the phrase of Sir George Lewis) " an afterthought ; " 
they are not a substitute for debt-relief, but a guarantee for 
its accomplishment. 

* Livy, vol. ii. pp. 23, 27, 31. — " Totam plebem sere alieno 
demersam esse," &c. 

Q 



226 REVIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS 

In regard to the passage of Cicero, we agree rather with 
the interpretation of Niebuhr than with that of Sir George 
Lewis. We think that Cicero (like Liyy) says what implies 
that a remission of debts must have been granted.* And it 
appears to us that an historian who finds himself in the 
presence of three such accounts as those of Dionysius, Livy, 
and Cicero, is warranted in supplying out of the first that 
fact which, though not expressly mentioned by the other 
two, is required to make each of them consistent with 
himself. 

Sir George Lewis pursues his minute analysis of the con- 
tradictions and incoherences which pervade the immediately 
succeeding period of Eoman history — the story of Coriola- 
nas — that of Spurius Cassius, the proposer of the first agra- 
rian law — the expedition and death of the three hundred 
Fabii, &c. All these are details which must have been de- 
rived by the annalist from oral communication. Yet in the 
midst of them the " substratum of notation " occasionally crops 



* The passage of Cicero is in the Fragment Be Bej)uhlicd, ii. 
33, 34. Cicero states, as explicitly as Dionysius and Livy, that 
the cause which brought about the suffering and secession of the 
plebeians, was the pressure of their private debts. The senate (he 
adds) might have applied a measure of relief to this grievance of 
debt, but they let slip the oj)portumty of doing so. Accordingly, 
they were constrained at last to submit to a concession much more 
formidable to their own power — the creation of the tribunate. 
" Quo tiun consilio pr^etermisso, causa populo nata est, duobus tri- 
bunis plebis per seditionem creatis, ut potentia senatus atque 
auctoritas minueretur." If the Senate were forced ultimately to 
make a more serious concession, this proves that the mutinous 
debtors had acquired increased strength. How then is it credible 
that they should become willing to bear the pressure of debt, which 
they had mutinied in order to escape ? The tribunate in itself 
could not mitigate this grievance. Cicero means (in om* judgment) 
that the Senate, having refused to grant a measm^e of debt-relief in 
time, when it would have given satisfaction, were forced, when the 
discontent ripened into irresistible mutiny, to grant, not only this 
debt-relief, but something much greater besides. 



ON EAELY ROMAN. HISTORY. 227 

out, thus (B.C. 462), we have : — " Many of the notices are of 
a character which seem to betoken contemporaneous regis- 
tration, such for instance, as the consecration of the temple 
of Dins Fidius on the nones of June, on the Quirinal hill, by 
the Consul Spurius Posthumius, in the year 466 B.C." (Vol. 
ii. p. 162) — and the punishment of two Vestal Virgins, 
Opimia and Orbinia (Vol. ii. pp. 141, 152, 183), who were 
buried alive for unchastity. This punishment was probably 
registered in the Pontifical Annals, since it had a salutary 
effect, as we learn from Livy and Dionysius, in appeasing 
the anger of the Gods, recently manifested in alarming- 
prodigies. 

To the Decemviral Government an elaborate section is 
devoted (Vol. ii. pp. 161, 252). These Decemvirs were named, 
after eleven years of plebeian importunity, to prepare written 
laws for rendering the administration of the Consuls both 
determinate in its principles and equal in its operation on 
patricians as well as plebeians. They composed the Twelve 
Tables — the earliest authentic monument of Eoman law. 
The history of the Decemvirate — given in detail by Livy, 
and in still greater detail by Dionysius — is " the institutional 
legend " respecting the origin, promulgation, and authors of 
these memorable and much admired tables. 

We agree with Sir George Lewis that this narrative must 
have been first put together by annalists long posterior, 
mainly from oral report; and that its credibility must be 
estimated accordingly. But we cannot think that the proof 
of this point is strengthened by his analysis of the texture of 
the narrative, nor that the internal difficulties and discrepan- 
cies are so grave as he represents. That which he conceives 
as a tissue of improbabilities is so far from appearing in the 
same light to Dionysius, that the latter (x. 1) expressly takes 
credit for furnishing on this occasion a philosophical and in- 
structive recital. The character and proceedings of the chief 
Decemvir Appius do not appear to us unnatural, nor do we 
feel the embarrassments started by Sir George Lewis. Why 
did Appius (it is asked) resign his place in the decemvirate 

Q 2 



228 REVIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS 

after the first year, and thus expose himself to the chance of 
not being re-elected ? (Vol. ii. p. 229.) We may surely 
answer — Because those who had been his colleagues during 
the meritorious proceedings of the first year, would not have 
been suitable for the atrocities of the second. Then by 
what force were Appius and his second colleagues enabled 
to tyrannise with temporary impunity ? " We hear (says Sir 
George Lewis) of no instruments of their power, except a/ew 
clubs or associations of young patricians, who are paid for 
their services by confiscated property." These ivere the 
instruments of the decemviral tyranny ; and they appear to 
us, as they appeared to Dionysius and Livy, sufficient for the 
purpose. These historians do not recognise the attenuating 
numerical adjective, a few : Dionysius even mentions (x. 60) 
bands of poor and reckless satellites enlisted by the decem- 
virs, in addition to the patrician youth. Moreover Livy 
expressly states that the only sufferers by the decemviral 
tyranny were the plebeians ; that among the patrician order, 
the younger men, who formed the real force, were gainers 
in every way ; and that even the elder or senatorial patricians, 
who disliked the decemvirs, disliked the suffering plebeians 
as much or more, were pleased to see them humbled, and 
even aggravated their humiliation by insult.* With such 
antipathy and mistrust between the two orders, and with 
such an amount of positive support from the more power- 
ful of the two, the Decemvirs possessed ample means of 
maintaining their tyranny during eighteen months, not to 
say longer. 



* Livy, iii. 36, 37. " Aliquamdiu sequatus inter omnes terror 
fuit ; paulatim totus verier e inplebem coepiL Ahstinehatur a Patribus : 
in huiniliores libidinose crudeliterque consulebatur ; hominum, non 
causarnm, toti erant : ut apud quos gratia vim sequi haberet." 

" Primores Patrum odisse Decemviros, odisse plebem ; 

nee probare, quae fierent ; et credere, baud indignis accidere. Avide 
ruendo in libertatem lapses juvare nolle : cumulare quoque injurias, 
ut tsedio praBsentium eonsules duo tandem et status pristinus rerum 
in desiderium venirent." 



ON EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. 229 

Again " We might have expected " (says Sir George Lewis, 
p. 238), "judging by the other atrocities ascribed to Appius, 
that he would have caused Virginia to be seized without the 
formalities of a public trial, and that he would have im- 
prisoned or killed her relatives and protectors." It might 
have been safer for him if he had done so. But Dionysius 
describes it as the ordinary practice of the Decemvirs in 
their tyranny, to suborn accusers and pronounce iniquitous 
judgments : when this had been done in a long series 
of cases without resistance, Appius did not sufficiently 
calculate the chances of resistance in a new case. Nor 
can we wonder that he did not anticipate the tragical 
event of a father publicly stabbing his own daughter in the 
forum. 

These and other embarrassments which a critical inquirer 
brings to view in the Decemviral history, are all very proper 
for notice. But we think that they are by no means inca- 
pable of solution : that the author himself, if he had been 
writing a work of history instead of criticism, would easily 
have found solutions : and that they are no greater than an 
historian, who has the advantage of contemporary authorities, 
must often be prepared to solve. Though poorly furnished 
as to external attestation, the story in its internal texture 
appears to us more plausible and coherent than his book 
exhibits it. 

During the sixty years between the fall of the Decemvirs 
and the Gallic capture, the internal history of Eome be- 
tokens a forward movement on the part of the plebeians. 
The demand made by the latter for equal admissibility to the 
consulship, is refused by the patricians ; who are, however, 
obliged to make the concession of substituting, in place of 
consuls, new magistrates entitled military tribunes (with 
powers nearly approaching to those of the consuls), among 
whom plebeians were eligible. These consular tribunes, 
with many alternating years of patrician consulship, con- 
tinued for seventy-seven years, when the Licinian laws 
re-established the consulship, with the peremptory en- 



230 REVIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS 

actment that one of the two consuls must be a plebeian. 
Respecting the historical character of this period, our author 
observes, — 

'' After the year B.C. 367, we hear no more of consular tribunes, 
and the office disappears from the Fasti. With the exception of 
the account of the first election of consular tribunes, the history 
of this magistracy during the seventy-seven years of its existence 
is consistent, coherent, and intelligible ; and the historical nar- 
rative supports and explains the lists of names in the tables of 
magistrates. So far, therefore, as the internal evidence goes, it 
confirms the authenticity of the traditionary accounts of the period 
in question." (Vol. ii. p. 396.) 

Here we have " the substratum of notation " and the 
traditionary details in a state of admitted harmony. Sir 
George Lewis pursues his analysis of the history through 
the 110 years between the Gallic capture and the landing 
of Pyrrhus. Though he still detects many contradictions 
and inconsistencies, they do not appear to him so glaring as 
those of the former period. As to the foreign wars with the 
Gauls, indeed, there are discrepancies impossible to reconcile 
between Polybius and Livy ; as to those with the Latins and 
Samnites, there are no such grave contradictions, though 
much is obscure and uncertain. Among the internal affairs 
of Rome, we commend to particular attention what is said 
about the Agrarian Laws, which are handled in a manner 
extremely perspicuous and instructive. (Vol. ii. p. 137, 183, 
384.) Some proofs are also adduced (which might probably 
be multiplied) of the continuance of the contemporary regis- 
tration for various isolated facts. (Vol. ii. p. 483-6.) On 
the whole, the facts and narratives indicate that we are 
approaching towards that clearer sunlight of history which 
begins to prevail for the times after Pyrrhus. 

Having performed this dissection of the evidences, with 
many most profitable comments upon Niebuhr, Arnold, and 
other previous expositors, Sir George Lewis adds a con- 
cluding chapter, summing up the general results of his 
inquiry, and illustrating his reasonings by comparisons with 



ON EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. 231 

Grecian history. We have no space to dwell upon these 
pertinent and well-chosen analogies, and can only advert to 
the general conclusion. Eemarking that as the different 
schools of historical criticism agree in considering attestation 
by contemporary witnesses as the essential condition for 
justifying belief in an alleged fact, he thus proceeds : — 

" The maiQ difference between the divergent schools is as to the 
extent to which contemporary attestation may be presumed without 
direct and positive proof. Both assume the same mode of proving 
an historical fact : but the former refuse to infer the proof from 
the existence of an oral tradition ; the latter consider that inference 
legitimate. The former deny that the existence of a popular belief 
with respect to the past, derived from oral reports, raises a pre- 
sumption that the events narrated were at the time of their sup- 
posed occurrence observed by credible witnesses, and by them 
handed down to posterity. The latter, on the other hand, hold that 
the existence of such a popular belief (combined perhaps with some 
accessory circumstances) authorises the conclusion that the current 
story was derived from credible contemporary witnesses, and has 
descended from them in a substantially unfalsified state." .... 
" The difference between the opposite opinions on this subject is 
therefore a difference of degree rather than of principle. Nobody 
asserts that all history must be taken directly from the reports of 
percipient witnesses. No historian applies the strict rule of judi- 
cial evidence, that all hearsay reports are to be discarded. In 
treating of the period which precedes contemporary history, all 
persons admit traditionary, secondary, or hearsay evidence, up to 
a certain point. The question is, where that point ought to be 
fixed?" (Vol. ii. p. 490.) 

After a few words (p. 494) upon the " difficulties which 
beset the application of rules of evidence to the semi-historical 
or crepuscular period, — a period of which some knowledge has 
been preserved, though by imperfect means, and in a dete- 
riorated state," — the last result is thus given : — 

" All the historical lajbour bestowed upon the early centuries of 
Eome will, in general, be wasted. The history of this period, 
viewed as a series of picturesque narratives, will be read to the 
greatest advantage in the original writers, and will be deteriorated 
by reproduction in a modern dress. If we regard a historical 



232 EEVIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS 

painting merely as a work of art, the accounts of the ancients can 
only suffer from being retouched by the pencil of the modern 
restorer. On the other hand, all attempts to reduce them to a purely 
historical form, by conjectural omissions, additions, alterations, and 
transpositions, must be nugatory." 

" Those who are disposed to labour in the field of Eoman history 
will find a worthier reward for their toils, if they employ them- 
selves upon the time subsequent to the Italian expedition of 
Pyrrhus." ....** In this history, much must remain incomplete, 
uncertain, and unknown : but the great outlines are as firmly 
marked as in a modern history, composed with brighter lights and 
from ampler materials : and the historical inquirer will meet with 
a richer return for his labours, than if he bewildered himself 
with vain attempts to distinguish between fact and fiction, in the 
accounts of the foundation of Eome, the constitution of Servius, 
the expulsion of Tarquin, the war with Porsena, the creation of the 
dictatorship and tribunate, the decemviral legislation, the siege of 
Veii and the capture of Kome by the Gauls ; or even the Licinian 
rogations, and the Samnite Wars." (Vol. ii. p. 556.) 

We subscribe to these conclusions fully, so far as regards 
Eoman history under the kings and prior to the Eepublic. 
As to the period of the Eepublic, we cannot adopt them 
without some qualification. Sir George Lewis fairly states 
the question : It being admitted, that there is a certain 
point antecedent to the beginning of contemporary history, 
up to which point historical research is legitimate and rea- 
sonable — where is this terminus to be fixed in regard to 
Eome ? He would fix it at the landing of Pyrrhus in Italy, 
But we submit that this is within the actual limits of con- 
temporary Grecian authorship, and, in a certains ense, even 
of Eoman authorship — through the speech of Appius in the 
Senate, which was preserved to later times. This terminus 
is therefore too low to correspond with the principles laid 
down. The Licinian laws can hardly be thrown into the 
category of the unsearchable — along with the foundation of 
Eome. 

In fixing the upward terminus, we perceive no index so ap- 
propriate as the beginning of contemporary notation ; which 
is, in truth, contemporary history in fragment and rudiment. 



ON EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. 233 

Wherever matters of fact and of public import were recorded, 
even though detached and without coherence, historical re- 
search becomes admissible. 

Now in Eome, " the substratum of notation " can be traced 
up to the commencement of the Eepublic, but not higher. 
No similar notation belongs to the regal period : at least, if 
any such existed, it never crops out, but is irrevocably sub- 
merged and undiscernible. Accordingly, the suitable upward 
terminus for historical research is, in our view, the commence- 
ment of the Eepublic. We consider the kingly period as 
lying above the limit of historical research, and as " a series 
of picturesque narratives" in which no matter of fact had 
ever any recorded existence apart from fiction. Comparing 
Eoman with Grecian history, we regard (conformably to Sir 
George Lewis's view) all that precedes the Eoman Eepublic 
as corresponding to heroic or legendary Greece ; we consider 
the first two centuries of the Republic as corresponding to 
Greece between the first recorded Olympiad (776 B.C.) and 
the year 500 B.C. To the first of the two, the microscope 
of the historian is inapplicable. Eespecting the second, we 
cannot say the same ; for there are, or were, some recorded 
realities which an attentive contemplation may hope to 
magnify and bring into fuller day-light, both in themselves 
and in the consequences deducible from them. 

This is the only line of demarcation which we see any 
theoretical reason for drawing. Whether the researches into 
the history of the early Eepublic will turn out very fruitful, 
or will yield much of new certainty and new probability, is 
a different question. We are not sanguine in hoping that 
they will: but neither are we sanguine respecting those 
investigations, recommended by Sir George Lewis as pre- 
ferable, into the later history of the Eoman Eepublic ; where 
there w^as once much contemporary information, now entirely 
lost, and represented by little except the Epitomes of Livy. 
What we expect from farther study of the early Eepublic, is, 
not so much a corrected version of the facts of detail, as 
better and clearer views of the institutional practice and 



234 REVIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS 

development, gathered by combination, inference, and cau- 
tious hypothesis, from a variety of distinct sources. Books 
on Roman antiquities (especially the excellent work of 
Becker and Marquardt) already teach us much respecting 
the magistracies and constitutional growth of the Republic : 
but we acquire no knowledge (beyond the literal statements 
as they stand) respecting the period of the Kings. And 
though there is much fanciful conjecture in Niebuhr, it is 
indisputable that many portions of Roman republican anti- 
quity (the Agrarian Laws especially) are far better under- 
stood than they were before his writings. 

Discountenancing as Sir George Lewis does all historical 
inquiry into Roman history anterior to Pyrrhus, it is natural 
that he should pronounce, as to that period, "All attempts 
to reduce the accounts of the ancients to an historical 
form by conjectural omissions, additions, alterations, and 
transpositions, must be nugatory." This is perfectly true 
respecting the period of the Kings, but we are not prepared 
to pronounce the like peremptory verdict (must) about the 
first two centuries of the Republic. The former (as we have 
above remarked) contains none of the genuine materials of 
history ; the latter contains some, in greater or less propor- 
tion. Li our view, wherever the genuine materials of history 
exist, all the processes above indicated are frequently indis- 
pensable, to bring out of them either continuous narrative or 
determinate results. It is by going through such elaboration 
that history is distinguished from a mere collection of depo- 
sitions. 

The manner in which Sir George Lewis sets forth the 
discrepancies between Livy and Dionysius, and the tone of 
his criticisms on Niebuhi', tend to suggest two impressions, 
which we are by no means sure that he would sanction, but 
from which we certainly dissent. 1. That discrepancies, as 
many and as great, are not to be foimd between contem- 
porary witnesses. 2. That the Niebuhrian spirit of hypo- 
thesis and recombination is illegitimate in principle, — not 
simply objectionable from abusive excess in Niebuhr's hands. 



ON EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. 235 

Now we think that contemporary witnesses often form a 
multitude with every variety of dissonance and contradic- 
tion :* and that if, out of such perplexities, an historian is to 
construct a narrative setting forth the true or the probable, 
he cannot proceed without a large latitude of preference and 
hypothesis. Even with the most unexceptionable historians — 
with Gibbon or Mr. Hallam — the narrative supplied to the 
reader is a result put together in their own minds, founded 
upon an attentive study of all the evidences, yet not without 
many inferences, comparisons, and eliminations of their own. 
Neither of these authors could have performed his task, if 
" conjectural omission, addition, alteration, and transposition," 
had been forbidden. We know that these liberties are liable 
to much abuse, and that they have been abused by Niebuhr. 



* As a parallel to the discrepancies between Livy and Dionysius, 
we transcribe the following account of the original authorities 
respecting the wars in La Vendee, from the beginning of 1793 
downwards. We have here contemporary witnesses, under the full 
publicity of modern times, described by M. Michelet, eminent both 
as an historian and as a laborious examiner of original archives. 
(Histotre de la Revolution Frangaise, vol. vii. p. 78.) 

" Le livre le plus instructif sur Thistoire de la Vendee ( j'allais 
dire, le seul) est celui de Savary, pere du membre de I'Academie 
des Sciences : Guerres des Vendeens, par un officier, 1824. Dans les 
autres, il y a peu a prendre. Ce sont des romans, qui ne soutiennent 
pas I'examen : les noms, les dates, les faits, presque tout y est inexact, 
faux, impudemment surcharge de fictions. Je le sais maintenant a 
mes depens, apres avoir perdu des annees dans la critique inutile de 
ces deplorables livres. Savary donne les vraies dates, et un nombre 
immense de pieces : les notes de Cauclaux, de Kleber, d'Oppenheim, 
y ajoutent un prix inestimable." 

We know the work of Savary, and can certify that it fully merits 
the encomiums bestowed upon it by M. Michelet. But to compose 
such a work, requires a combination of ability, diligence, and oppor- 
tunity, such as are rarely brought together in the same person. 
How many periods are there of human affairs, in which there are 
contemporary authors approximating to the dark side of Michelet's 
picture, without any such witness to control them as Savary ! 



236 REVIEW OF SIR G. C. LEWIS, ETC. 

But in commending a salutary vigilance of criticism on this 
eminent man, in so many instances of his arbitrary dealing 
with evidence, we must at the same time guard against 
what appears to us an opposite extreme. We cannot dis- 
allow the constructive imagination of the historian, nor 
lighten his responsibility by tying him down to a literal 
sequence. 

While claiming for historians this freedom of judgment, 
in their laborious task of eliciting probability out of con- 
flicting statements and analogies, we should be glad if it 
could always be exercised subject to such a censorship as 
that of Sir George Lewis. No man interested either in 
ancient history or in the general theory of historical study, 
can read his book without profit ; but none will profit by it 
so much as those who, adopting his conclusions only in part, 
account the first two centuries of the Eoman Eepublic a 
subject still open to historical research and philosophical 
explanation. 



PLATO'S DOCTEINE 



RESPECTING THE 



ROTATION OF THE EARTH, 

AND 

ARISTOTLE'S COMMENT UPON THAT DOCTRINE. 

1860. 



Examination of tJie three following Questions : — 
1. Whether the Doctrine of the Ea^rth's Eotation is affirmed 

OR IMPLIED IX the PlATONIC TiM.EUS ? 



2. If AFFIRMED OR EMPLIED, FN" WHAT SENSE ? 

3. What is the Cosmical Function which Plato assigns to the 
Earth in the Tim.eus? 



PLATO-ON THE EARTH'S ROTATION- 



The following paper was originally intended as an explana- 
tory note on the Platonic Timeeus, in the work which I am 
now preparing on Plato and Aristotle. Interpreting, differ- 
ently from others, the much debated passage in which Plato 
describes the cosmical function of the Earth, I found it 
indispensable to give my reasons for this new view. But 
I soon discovered that those reasons could not be comprised 
within the limits of a note. Accordingly I here publish 
them in a separate Dissertation. The manner in which the 
Earth's rotation was conceived, illustrates the scientific cha- 
racter of the Platonic and Aristotelian age, as contrasted 
with the subsequent development and improvement of astro- 
nomy. 

In Plato, Timseus, p. 40 B, we read the following words — 
Trjv Se Tpo(f>bv fxev f)jbL€Tepav, elXKofievrjv Se irepl top Sea iravro^ 
TToXov rerafievov (j^vKaKa /cat Brjficovpyov vvkt6<; re kol ri/j,€pa<^ 
i/ii7]'^av7](TaTo, Trpcorrjv kol Trpeo-^vrdrTjv 6eo)v, ocrot eWo? ou- 
pdvov yeyovaac, I give the text as it stands in Stallbaum's 
edition. 

The obscurity of this passage is amply attested by the 
numerous differences of opinion to which it has given rise, 
both in ancient and in modern times. Various contempo- 
raries of Plato (€1/^06— Aristot. De Coelo, II. 13, p. 293 b. 30) 
understood it as asserting or implying the rotatory movement 
of the earth in the centre of the Kosmos, and adhered to 
this doctrine as their own. Aristotle himself alludes to these 



240 PLATCyS DOCTRINE 

contemporaries without naming them, and adopts their in- 
terpretation of the passage ; but dissents from the doctrine, 
and proceeds to impugn it by arguments. Cicero mentions 
(Academic. II. 39) that there were persons who believed 
Plato to have indicated the same doctrine obscurely, in his 
Timaeus : this passage must undoubtedly be meant. Plu- 
tarch devotes a critical chapter to the enquiry, what was 
Plato's real doctrine as to the cosmical function of the earth 
— its movement or rest (Quaestion. Platonic. VIL 3, p. 1006). 
There exists a treatise, in Doric dialect, entitled Tcfiaico 
7(0 Ao/cpco Hepl '^u^a? Koct/jlco koX cf>vaLo<;, — which is usually 
published along with the works of Plato. This treatise was 
supposed in ancient times to be a genuine production of the 
Lokrian Timaeus, whom Plato introduces as his spokesman 
in the dialogue so called. As such, it was considered to be 
of much authority in settling questions of interpretation as 
to the Platonic Timaeus. But modem critics hold, I believe 
unanimously, that it is the work of some later Pythagorean 
or Platonist, excerpted or copied from the Platonic Timaeus. 
This treatise represents the earth as being in the centre 
and at rest. But its language, besides being dark and meta- 
phorical, departs widely from the phraseology of the Platonic 
Timaeus: especially in this — that it makes no mention of 
the cosmical axis, nor of the word IXXofxevrjv or elXovfievrjv. 

Alexander of Aphrodisias (as we learn from Simplikius ad 
Aristot. De Coelo, fol. 126) followed the construction of Plato 
given by Aristotle. " It was improbable (he said) that Ari- 
stotle could be ignorant either what the word signified, or 
what was Plato's purpose " (aWa tcS 'ApiaroTeXet, (prjalv^ 
ovTco XiyovTL tWeaOai, ov/c evXoyov avriXeyeiv' a)9 aXrj- 
6w jcip ovT€ T779 Xe^eco9 to o-rj/juaLvojubevov 66/^09 rjv dyvoelv 
avTov, 0VT6 TOP TlXdTcovo<; gkottov. This passage is not given 
in the Scholia of Brandis). Alexander therefore construed 
lXXo/jL€V7]v as meaning or implying rotatory movement, 
though in so doing he perverted (so Simplikius says) the 
true meaning to make it consonant with his own suppo- 
sitions. 



ON THE ROTATION OF THE EARTH. 241 

Proklus maintains that Aristotle has interpreted the pas- 
sage erroneously, — that iKKofievriv is equivalent to <7<^t7- 
jofiivrjp or ^vve')(piJb'€vr}v — and that Plato intends by it to 
affirm the earth as at rest in the centre of the Kosmos (ad 
Timaeum, Book iv., p. 681 ed. Schneider). Simplikius himself 
is greatly perplexed, and scarcely ventures to give a positive 
opinion of his own. On the whole, he inclines to believe 
that IWojbiivrjv might possibly be understood, by superficial 
readers, so as to signify rotation, though such is not its 
proper and natural sense : that some Piatonists did so mis- 
understand it : and that Aristotle accepted their sense for 
the sake of the argument, without intending himself to coun- 
tenance it (ad Aristot. De Coelo, p. 126). 

Both Proklus and Simplikius, we must recollect, believed 
in the genuineness of the Doric treatise ascribed to Timaeus 
Locrus. Eeasoning upon this basis, they of course saw, that 
if Aristotle had correctly interpreted Plato, Plato himself 
must have interpreted incorrectly the doctrine of Timaeus. 
They had to ascribe wrong construction either to Plato or to 
Aristotle : and they could not bear to ascribe it to Plato. 

Alkinous, in his Eisagoge (c. 15) gives the same interpre- 
tation as Proklus. But it is remarkable that in his para- 
phrase of the Platonic words, he calls the earth r}iJL€pa<;^v\a^ 
Kol vvkt6<; : omitting the significant epithet STj/jnovpyof;. 

In regard to modern comments upon the same disputed 
point, I need only mention (besides those of M. Cousin, in 
the notes upon his translation of the ' Timaeus,' and of Martin 
in his ' Etudes sur le Timee ') the elaborate discussion which 
it has received in the two recent Dissertations ' Ueber die 
kosmischen Systeme der Griechen,' by Gruppe and Boeckh. 
Gruppe has endeavoured, upon the evidence of this passage, 
supported by other collateral proofs, to show that Plato, 
towards the close of his life, arrived at a belief, first, in the 
rotation of the earth round its own axis, next, at the double 
movement of the earth, both rotation and translation, round 
the sun as a centre (that is, the heliocentric or Copernican 
system) : that Plato was the first to make this discovery, but 

R 



242 PLATO'S DOCTRINE 

that he was compelled to announce it in terms intentionally 
equivocal and obscure, for fear of offending the religious 
sentiments of his contemporaries (^ Die kosmischen Systeme 
der Griechen,' by O. F. Gruppe, Berlin. 1851). To tbis dis- 
sertation ]\L Boeekh — the oldest as well as the ablest of all 
living philologists — has composed an elaborate reply, with 
his usual fulness of illustrative matter and sobriety of infer- 
ence. Opinions previously delivered by him (in his early 
treatises on the Platonic and Pythagorean philosophy) 
had been called in question by Gruppe : he has now re-' 
asserted them and defended them at length, maintaining 
that Plato always held the earth to be stationary and the 
sidereal sphere rotatory ; and answering or extenuating the 
arguments which point to an opposite conclusion (' Unter- 
suchungen iiber das kosmische System des Platon/ by August 
Boeekh, Berlin, 1852). 

Gruppe has failed in his purpose of proving that Plato 
adopted either of the two above-mentioned doctrines — either 
the rotation of the earth round its own axis, or the trans- 
lation of the earth round the sun as a centre. On both 
these points I concur with Boeekh in the negative view. 
But though I go along with his reply as to its negative 
results, I cannot think it satisfactory in its positive aspect 
as an exposition of the doctrine proclaimed in the Platonic 
Timseus : nor can I admit that the main argument of M. 
Boeckh's treatise is sufficient to support the inference which 
he rests upon it. Moreover, he appears to me to set aside or 
explain away too lightly the authority of Aristotle. I agree 
with Alexander of Aphrodisias and with Gruppe who follows 
him, in pronouncing Aristotle to be a good witness, when 
he declares what were the doctrines proclaimed in the Pla- 
tonic TimsBus ; though I think that Gruppe has not accu- 
rately interpreted either Timseus or Aristotle. 

The capital argument of Boeekh is as follows : '^ The Pla- 
tonic Timaeus affirms, in express and unequivocal terms, the 
rotation of the outer celestial sphere (the sidereal sphere or 
^.planes) in twenty-four hours, as bringing about and deter- 



ON THE ROTATION OF THE EARTH. 243 

mining the succession of day and night. Whoever believes 
this cannot at the same time believe that the earth revolves 
round its own axis in twenty-four hours, and that the suc- 
cession of day and night is determined thereby. The one 
of these two afiirmations excludes the other; and, as the first 
of the two is proclaimed, beyond all possibility of doubt, in 
the Platonic Timseus, so we may be sure that the second 
of the two cannot be proclaimed in that same discourse. If 
any passage therein seems to countenance it, we must look 
for some other mode of interpreting the passage." 

This is the main argument of M. Boeckh, and also of 
Messrs. Cousin and Martin. The latter protests against the 
idea of imputing to Plato "un melange monstrueux de 
deux systemes incompatibles " (' Etudes sur le Timee,' vol. ii. 
p. 86-88). 

As applied to any person educated in the modern astro- 
nomy, the argument is irresistible. But is it equally irre- 
sistible when applied to Plato and to Plato's time ? I think 
not. The incompatibility which appears so glaring at pre- 
sent, did not suggest itself to him or to his contemporaries. 
To prove this we have only to look at the reasoning of 
Aristotle, who (in the treatise De Coelo, ii. 13-14, p. 293. 
b. 30, 296. a. 25) notices and controverts the doctrine of the 
rotation of the earth, with express reference to the followers 
of the Platonic Timaeus, and who (if we follow the view of 
Martin) imputes this doctrine with wilful falsehood to Plato, 
for the purpose of contemptuously refuting it, "pour se 
donner le plaisir de la refuter avec dedain." Granting the 
view of M. Boeckh (still more that of Martin) to be correct, 
we should find Aristotle arguing thus : — " Plato affirms the 
diurnal rotation of the earth round the centre of the cosmical 
axis. This is both incredible, and incompatible with his 
own distinct affirmation that the sidereal sphere revolves in 
twenty-four hours. It is a glaring inconsistency that the 
same author should affirm both the one and the other." 
Such would have been Aristotle's reasoning, on the hypo- 
thesis which I am considering ; but when we turn to his 

R 2 



244 PLATO'S DOCTRINE 

treatise we find that he does not employ this argument at 
all. He contests the alleged rotation of the earth upon 
totally different arguments — chiefly on the ground that 
rotatory motion is not natural to the earth, that the kind 
of motion natural to the earth is rectilineal, towards the 
centre ; and he adds various corollaries flowing from this 
doctrine which I shall not now consider. At tlie close of his 
refutation, he states in general terms that the celestial ap- 
pearances, as observed by scientific men, coincided with his 
doctrine. 

Hence we may plainly see that Aristotle probably did 
not see the incompatibility, supposed to be so glaring, upon 
which M. Boeckh's argument is founded. To say the least, 
even if he saw it, he did not consider it as glaring and 
decisive. He would have put it in the foreground of his 
refutation, if he had detected the gross contradiction upon 
which M. Boeckh insists. Bnt xlristotle does not stand 
alone in this dulness of vision. Amono; the various com- 
mentators, ancient and modern, who follow him, discussing 
the question now before us, not one takes notice of M. 
Boeckh's argument. He himself certifies to us this fact, 
claiming the argument as his own, and expressing his asto- 
nishment that all the previous critics had passed it over, 
though employing other reasons much weaker to prove the 
same point. We read in IM. Boeckh's second ' Commentatio 
de Platonico Systemate Coelestium Globorum et de Vera 
Indole Astronomiae Philolaicae,' Heidelberg, 1810, p. 9, the 
following words : — 

" Non moveri tellurem, Proclus et Simplicius ostendunt 
ex Phaedone. Parum flrmum tamen argumentum est ex 
Phaedone ductum ad interpretandum Timaei locum : nee 
melius alteram, quod Locrus Timaeus, quern Plato sequi 
putabatur, terram stare affirmat : quia, ut nuper explicuimus, 
non Plato ex Locro, sed personatus Locrus ex Platone, sua 
compilavit. At omnium firmissimum et certissimum argu- 
mentum ex ipso nostro dialogo sumptum, adhuc, quod jure 
mirerey nemo rejperit Etenim, quum, paulo supra, orbem 



ON THE ROTATION OF THE EARTH. 245 

stellarum fixarum, quern Graeci arrKavrj appeUant, dextrorsum 
ferri quotidiano motu Plato statuebat, non poterat uUum 
terrae motum admittere ; quia, qui hunc admittit, iUum non 
toller e non potest.'^ (This passage appears again cited by 
M. Boeckh himself in his more recent dissertation ^ Unter- 
suchungen iiber das kosmische System des Platon/ p. 11). The 
writers named (p. 7) as having discussed the question, omit- 
ting or disregarding this most cogent argument, are names 
extending from Aristotle down to Euhnken and Ideler. 

It is honourable to the penetration of M. Boeckh that he 
should have pointed out, what so many previous critics had 
overlooked, that these two opinions are scientifically incom- 
patible. He wonders, and there may be good ground for 
wondering, how it happened that none of these previous 
writers were aware of the incompatibility. But the fact 
that it did not occur to them, is not the less certain, and 
is of the greatest moment in reference to the question now 
under debate ; for we are not now inquiring what is or is not 
scientifically true or consistent, but what were the opinions 
of Plato. M. Boeckh has called our attention to the fact, 
that these two opinions are incompatible ; but can we safely 
assume that Plato must have perceived such incompati- 
bility between them ? Surely not. The Pythagoreans of his 
day did not perceive it; their cosmical system included both 
the revolution of the earth and the revolution of the sidereal 
sphere round the central fire, ten revolving bodies in all 
(Aristotel. Metaphysic. i. 35, p. 96 a. 10. De Ccelo, ii. 13, 
p. 293 b. 21). They were not aware that the revolutions 
of the one annulled those of the other as to effect, and that 
their system must involve the two contradictory articles, or 
" melange monstrueux/' of which Martin speaks so disdain- 
fully. Nay, more, their opponent, Aristotle, while producing 
other arguments against them, never points out the contra- 
diction. Since it did not occur to them, we can have no 
greater difficulty in believing that neither did it occur to 
Plato. Indeed, the wonder would rather be if Plato had 
seen an astronomical incompatibility which escaped the 



246 PLATO'S DOCTRINE 

notice both of Aristotle and of many subsequent writers 
who wrote at a time when astronomical theories had been 
developed and compared with greater fulness. Even Ideler, 
a good astroDomer as well as a good scholar, though he 
must surely have known that Plato asserted the rotation 
of the sidereal sphere (for no man can read the ' Timeeus ' 
without knowing it), ascribed to him also the other doctrine 
inconsistent with it, not noticing such inconsistency until 
M. Boeckh pointed it out. 

It appears to me, therefore, that M. Boeckh has not satis- 
factorily made good his point — " Plato cannot have believed 
in the diurnal rotation of the earth, because he unquestion- 
ably believed in the rotation of the sidereal sphere as 
causing the succession of night and day." For, though the 
two doctrines really are incompatible, yet the critics ante- 
cedent to M. Boeckh took no notice of such incompatibility. 
We cannot presume that Plato saw what Aristotle and other 
authors, many even writing under a more highly developed 
astronomy, did not see. We ought rather, I think, to pre- 
sume the contrary, unless Plato's words distinctly attest that 
he did see farther than his successors. 

Now let us examine what Plato's words do attest : — ^rjv Se 
Tpo(j)ov jJLev TjixeTepav eiWo/jbevrjv (al. etXo/Jievrjv, IWo/jievrjv) 
8e irepl rov Sia iravTo^ iroiKov reTajuLevov (pvXa/ca kol Brj/jLLovpyov 
vvKTo^ re KoX rjiJbepa<^ i/Ji7]')(^avi](7aT0, TTpdorrjV kol 7rp€a/3vTdT7]v 
deodv, oaoi eWo9 ovpdvov yey ovacn, 

I explain these words as follows : — 

In the passage immediately preceding, Plato had described 
the uniform and unchanging rotation of the outer sidereal 
sphere, or Circle of The Same, and the erratic movements 
of the sun, moon, and planets, in the interior Circles of the 
Diverse. He now explains the situation and functions of 
the earth. Beino; the first and most venerable of the intra- 
kosmic deities, the earth has the most important place in the 
interior of the kosmos — the centre. It is packed, fastened, 
or rolled, close round the axis which traverses the entire 
kosmos ; and its function is to watch over and bring about 



ON THE ROTATION OF THE EARTH. 247 

the succession of night and day. Flato conceives the hosmic 
axis itself as a solid cylinder revolving or turning round, and 
causing thereby the revolution of the circumference or the 
sidereal sphere. The outer circumference of the kosmos not 
only revolves round its axis, but obeys a rotatory impulse 
emanating from its axis, like the spinning of a teetotum or 
the turning of a spindle. Plato in the Republic illustrates 
the cosmical axis by comparison with a spindle turned by 
Necessity, and describes it as causing by its own rotation 
the rotation of all the heavenly bodies (Republ. x. p. 616, 
c. 617 A), e/c Se tS)v aKpcov Terafxevov ^Kvwyicr]^ drpaKToVy 
S/' ov Trdcraf; e7narpe(^ecr6ai ra^ 7r6pL(f)opa<; .... KVKKeladai 
he Sr] arpe^ofxevov rov drpaKTOv oKov /xev rrjv avrrjv ^opdv 
.... arpe^eaOaL he avrov ev TOi<s ^AvdjK7]<; ryovacrLv.* 

Now the function which Plato ascribes to the earth in the 
passage of the Timseus before us is very analogous to that 
which in the Republic he ascribes to Necessity — the active 
guardianship of the axis of the kosmos and the maintenance 
of its regular rotation. With a view to the exercise of this 
function, the earth is planted in the centre of the axis, the 



* Proklus in his Commentary on the Platonic Timceus (p. 682, 
Schn.) notes this passage of the Bejpuhlic as the proper comparison 
from which to interpret how Plato conceived the cosmical axis. 
In many points he explains this correctly ; but he omits to remark 
that the axis is expressly described as revolving, and as causing the 
revolution of the peripheral substance : — 

rbv 8e a^ova fxiav OeoTrjra crvvayoiyov [xkv roiv Kevrpoyv rov 

TravTO?, crvvcKTiKrjV 8e tov o\ov KocrfJiov, KtVTjTLKrjv Se T(hv OctoiV 
7r€pL<j>opCi)Vf Trepl yjv rj ^opeta tCjv oXcoi/, Trcpi 7]V at avaKVKXy(T€L<;, 
av€)(ov(Tav rov oXov ovpavov, rjv KaV ArXavra Sia tovto irpocTUpiqKacTiV, 
o)S arp^TTTOV Kol arpvTOV ivipyeiav k^ovcrav, /cat p^^vroi koI to rerapevov 
ivSeLKwrai TirrjViov et^at rrfv pcav raiJTrjV 8i;i/a/xti/, T7]V <ppovprj~ 
TLKrjv ttJs avaKVKXycreois rwv oXwv, 

Here Proklus recognizes the efficacy of the axis in producing 
and maintaining the revolution of the Kosmos, but he does not 
remark that it initiates this movement by revolving itself. The 
®€OTrjs, which Proklus ascribes to the axis, is invested in the earth 
nacked round it, bv the Platonic Timceus. 



248 PLATO'S DOCTRINE 

very root of the kosmic soul (Plato, Timaeus, p. 34 B). It is 
even " packed dose round the axis," in order to make sure 
that the axis shall not be displaced from its proper situation 
and direction. The earth is thus not merely active and 
influential, but is really the chief regulator of the march of 
the kosmos, being the immediate neighbour and auxiliary 
of the kosmic soul. Such a function is worthy of ^' the first 
and eldest of intra-kosmic deities," as Plato calls the earth. 
With perfect propriety he may say that the earth, in the 
exercise of such a function, " is guardian and artificer of day 
and night." This is noway inconsistent with that which he 
says in another passage, that the revolutions of the outer 
sidereal sphere determine day and night. For these revo- 
lutions of the outer sidereal sphere depend upon the revolu- 
tions of the axis, w^hich latter is kept in uniform position 
and movement by the earth grasping it round its centre and 
revolving with it. The earth does not determine days and 
nights by means of its own rotations, but by its continued 
influence upon the rotations of the kosmic axis, and (through 
this latter) upon those of the outer sidereal sphere. 

It is important to attend to the circumstance last men- 
tioned, and to understand in what sense Plato admitted a 
rotatory movement of the earth. In my judgment, the con- 
ception respecting the earth and its functions, as developed 
in the Platonic Timseus, has not been considered with all 
its points taken together. One point among several, and 
that too the least important point, has been discussed as if 
it were the whole, because it falls in with the discussions 
of subsequent astronomy. Thus Plato admits the rotation of 
the earth, but he does not admit it as producing any eS'ects, 
or as the primary function of the earth : it is only an in- 
direct consequence of the position which the earth occupies in 
the discharge of its primary function — of keeping the cosmical 
axis steady, and maintaining the uniformity of its rotations. 
If the cosmical axis is to revolve, the earth, being closely 
packed and fastened round it, must revolve along with it. 
If the earth stood still, and resisted all rotation of its own, 



ON THE ROTATION OF THE EABTH. 249 

it would at the same time arrest the rotations of the cosmical 
axis, and of course those of the entire kosmos besides. 

The above is the interpretation which I propose of the 
passage in the Platonic TimaBUs, and which I shall show to 
coincide with Aristotle's comment upon it. Messrs. Boeckh 
and Martin interpret differently. They do not advert to the 
sense in which Plato conceives the axis of the kosmos — not 
as an imaginary line, but as a solid revolving cylinder ; and 
moreover they understand the function assigned by the 
Platonic Timseus to the earth in a way which I cannot 
admit. They suppose that the function assigned to the earth 
is not to keep up and regularize, but to withstand and 
countervail, the rotation of the kosmos. M. Boeckh com- 
ments upon Gruppe, who had said (after Ideler) that when 
the earth is called <^v\aKa /cat Srj/jLiovprybv vvkto^ koI 
r}/jL€pa<;, Plato must have meant to designate some active 
function ascribed to it, and not any function merely passive 
or negative. I agree with Gruppe in this remark, and I 
have endeavoured to point out what this active function of 
the earth is, in the Platonic theory. But M. Boeckh (Unter- 
suchungen, &c., p. 69-70) controverts Gruppe' s remark, ob- 
serving, first, that it is enough if the earth is in any way 
necessary to the production of the given effect; secondly, 
that if active force be required, the earth (in the Platonic 
theory) does exercise such, by its purely passive resistance, 
which is in itself an energetic putting forth of power. 

M. Boeckh's words are : — " Es kommt nur darauf an, dass er 
ein Werk, eine Wirkung, hervorbringt oder zu einer Wirkung 
beitrao-t, die ohne ihn nicht ware : dann ist er durch seine 
Wirksamkeit ein Werkmeister der Sache, sei es auch ohne 
active Thatigkeit, durch bloss passiven Widerstand, der auch 
eine machtige Kraftausserung ist. Die Erde ist Werk- 
meisterin der Nacht und des Tages, wie Martin (b. ii. p. 88) 
sehr treffend sagt, ' par son energique existence, c'est a dire, 
par son immobilite memo :' denn sie setzt der taglichen 
Beweguug des Himmels bestandig eine gleiche Kraft in 
entgegengesetzter Eichtung entgegen. So muss nach dem 



250 PLATO'S DOCTEINE 

Zusammenliange ausgelegt werden : so meint es Platon klar 
und olme YerhuUungeu : denn wenige Zeilen vorher hat er 
gesagt, Xaclit iiud Tag, das heisst, ein Sterntag oder Zeittag, 
sei ein Umlauf des Kreises des Selbigen — das ist, eirie 
tdgliche Umkreisung des Himmeh von Osten nach Westen, 
icodurch also die Erde in Stillstand versetzt ist : und diese 
tagliche Bewegung des Hiiiimels hat er im vorhergehenden 
immer und immer gelehrt." . . . . '•' Indem Platon die Erde 
nennt elXo/ievrjv, nicht Trepl lov eavrrj^; ttoXov, sondern irepl 
Tov Sta iravTo^ irokov Terajxevov, setzt er also die tagliche 
Bewegung des Himmles voraus" (p. 70-71).* 

I not only admit but put it in front of my own case, that 
Plato in the Timaeus assumes the diurnal movement of the 
celestial sphere ; but I contend that he also assumes the 
diurnal rotation of the earth. M. Boeckh founds his con- 
trary interpretation upon the unquestionable truth that these 
two assumptions are inconsistent ; and upon the inference 
that because the two cannot stand together in fact, there- 
fore they cannot have stood together in the mind of Plato. 



* " We are only required to show, that the Earth produces a 
work or an effect, — or contributes to an effect which would not exist 
without such help : the Earth is then, through such operation, an 
Artificer of what is produced, even without any positive activity, 
by its simply passive resistance, which indeed is in itself a j^oweiful 
exercise of force. The Earth is Ai'tificer of night and day, according 
to the striking expression of Martin, ' par son energique existence, 
c'est-a-dire, par son inimobilite meme:' for the Earth opposes, to 
the diui'nal movement of the Heavens, a constant and equal force 
in the opposite direction. This explanation must be the true one 
required hy the context : this is Plato's meaning, plainly and with- 
out disguise : for he has said, a few lines before, that Night and 
Day (that is, a sidereal day, or day of time) is a diurnal revolution 
of the Heaven from East to West, whereby accordingly the Earth 
is assumed as at rest : And this diui^nal movement of the Heaven 
he has taught over and over again in the preceding part of his 
discourse." — " Since therefore Plato calls the Earth elXojmevrjv, not 
Trepl TOV eavTTjS ttoXov, hut Trepl tov Slo. Travrog iroXov T€TafjL€Vov, he 
implies thereby the diurnal movement of the Heaven." 



ON THE EOTATION OF THE EABTH. 251 

In that inference I have already stated that I cannot 
acquiesce. 

But while M, Boeckh takes so much pains to vindicate 
Plato from one contradiction, he unconsciouslv involves Plato 
in another contradiction, for which, in my judgment, there 
is no foundation whatever. M. Boeckh affirms that the 
function of the earth (in the Platonic Timaeus) is to put forth 
a great force of passive resistance — ^"to oppose constantly, 
against the diurnal movement of the heavens, an equal force 
in an opposite direction." Is it not plain, upon this suppo- 
sition, that the kosmos would come to a standstill, and that 
its rotation would cease altogether ? As the earth is packed 
close or fastened round the cosmical axis, so, if the axis 
endeavours to revolve with a given force, and the earth 
resists with equal force, the effect will be that the two forces 
will destroy one another, and that neither the earth nor the 
axis will move at all. There would be the same nullifying 
antao'onism as if, — revertino^ to the analoo'ous case of the 
spindle and the verticilli (already alluded to) in the tenth 
book of the Republic, — as if, while Ananke turned the 
spindle with a given force in one direction, Klotho (instead 
of lending assistance) were to apply her hand to the outer- 
most verticillus with equal force of resistai.ce in the opposite 
direction (see Eeipubl. x. p. 617 D). It is plain that the 
spindle would never turn at all. 

Here, then, is a grave contradiction attaching to the 
view of Boeckh and Martin as to the function of the earth. 
They have not, in my judgment, sufficiently investigated the 
manner in which Plato represents to himself the cosmical axis : 
nor have they fully appreciated what is affirmed or implied 
in the debated word elXo/j^evov — etkovfievov — iWo/jcevov, That 
word has been explained partly by Euhnken in his notes on 
Timsei Lexicon, but still more by Buttmann in his Lexilogus, 
so accurately and copiously as to leave nothing further 
wanting. I accept fully the explanation given by Buttmann, 
and have followed it throughout this article. After going 
over many other examples, Buttmann comes to consider this 



252 PLATO'S DOCTRINE 

passage of the Platonic Timseus ; and lie explains the word 
€l\o/jL€V7]Vy or lX\6/jl6V7]p, as meaning — " sich drdngen oder 
gedrdngt werden um die Axe : d. h. von alien Seiten her an 
die Axe. Auch lasse man sich das Praesens nicht irren : die 
Krafte, welche den Weltbau machen und zusammenhalten, 
sind als fortdauernd thatig gedacht. Die Erde drang sich 
(ununterbrochen) an den Pol, macht, hildet eine Kugel um ihn. 
Welcher Gebrauch Tollig entspricht dem, wonach dasselbe 
Verbnm ein einwicheln^ einhilllen, bedeutet. Auch hier mengt 
sich in der Yorstellung einiges hinzn, was auf ein hiegen, 
mnden und mitunter auf ein drelien fiihrt : ^yas aber uberall 
nur ein durch die Sache sdbst hinzutretender Begriff ist,'' 
p. 151. And again, p. 154, he gives the result — that the 
word has only " die Bedeutung drdngen, hefestigen, nebst den 
da von ausgehenden — die von drelien, tvinden, aber ihm gdnz- 
licli fremd sind und nur aus der Natur der Gegenstdnde in 
einigen Fallen als Nebengedanlcen liinzutretenr * 

In these last words Buttmann has exactly distinguished 
the true, constant, and essential meaning of the word, from 
the casual accessories which become conjoined with it by the 
special circumstances of some peculiar cases. The constant 
and true meaning of the word is, heing packed or fastened close 
round, squeezing or grasping around. The idea of rotating or 



* To pac/j itself, or to hepacJced, round the axis ; that is, upon the 
axis from all sides. We must not be misled by the present tense : 
for the forces, which compose and hold together the structure of the 
universe, are conceived as continuously in active operation. The 
'EdLith pacJcs itself, or is packed, on to the axis — makes orfor'ins a hall 
round the axis ; which corresponds fully to that other usage of the 
word, in the sense of icrapping up or swatliing round. Here too 
there is a superadded something blended with the idea, which con- 
ducts us to turning, winding, and thus to revolving : but this is every- 
where nothing more than an accessory notion, suggested by the 
circumstances of the case. The word has only the meaning, to pack, 
to fasten — the senses, to wind, to revolve, are altogether foreign to it, 
and can only be superadded as accessory ideas, in certain particular 
instances, by the special nature of the case." 



ON THE ROTATION OF THE EARTH. 253 

revolving is quite foreign to this meaning, but may never- 
theless become conjoined with it, in certain particular cases, 
by accidental circumstances. 

Let us illustrate this. When I say that a body A is 
etXofjbevov^ or iWofjuevov (packed or fastened close round, 
squeezing or grasping around), another body B, I .affirm 
nothing about revolution or rotation. This is an idea foreign 
to the proposition per se^ yet capable of being annexed or 
implicated with it under some accidental circumstances. 
Whether in any particular case it be so implicated or not 
depends on the question " What is the nature of the body 5, 
round which I afSrm A to be fastened ?" 1. It may be an 
oak tree or a pillar, firmly planted and stationary. 2. It 
may be some other body, moving, but moving in a recti- 
linear direction. 3. Lastly, it may be a body rotating or 
intended to rotate, like a spindle, a spit, or the rolling 
cylinder of a machine. In the first supposition, all motion 
is excluded : in the second, rectilinear motion is implied, but 
rotatory motion is excluded : in the third, rotatory motion 
is implied as a certain adjunct. The body which is fastened 
round another, must share the motion or the rest of that 
other. If the body £ is a revolving cylinder, and if I affirm 
that A is packed or fastened close round it, I introduce the 
idea of rotation ; though only as an accessory and implied 
fact, in addition to that which the proposition affirms. The 
body A, being fastened round the cylinder jB, must either 
revolve along with it and round it, or it must arrest the 
rotation of B. If the one revolves, so must the other ; 
both must either revolve together, or stand still together. 
This is a new fact, distinct from what is affirmed in the pro- 
position, yet implied in it or capable of being inferred from 
it through induction and experience. 

Here we see exactly the position of Plato in regard to the 
rotation of the earth. He does not affirm it in express terms, 
but he affirms what implies it. For when he says that the 
earth is packed or fastened close round the cosmical axis, he 
conveys to us by implication the knowledge of another and 



254 PLATO'S DOCTRINE 

distinct fact — that the earth and the cosmical axis must 
either revolve together or remain stationary together — that 
the earth must either revolve along with the axis or arrest 
the revolutions of the axis. It is manifest that Plato does 
not mean the revolutions of the axis of the kosmos to be 
arrested : they are absolutely essential to the scheme of the 
Timaeus — they are the grand motive-agency of the kosmos. 
He must, therefore, mean to imply that the earth revolves 
alons: with and around the cosmical axis. And thus the 
word eiXofievov or IWo^evoVy according to Buttmann's doc- 
trine, becomes accidentally conjoined, through the specialities 
of this case, with an accessory idea of rotation or revolu- 
tion ; though that idea is foreign to its constant and natural 
meaning. 

Now if we turn to Aristotle, we shall find that he under- 
stood the word elXo/xevov or IWo/ievov, and the proposition of 
Plato, exactly in this sense. Here I am compelled to depart 
from Buttmann, who afQrms (p. 152), with an expression of 
astonishment, that xlristotle misunderstood the proposition of 
Plato, and interpreted elXo/xevov or IWofievov as if it meant 
directly as well as incontestably, rotating or revolving. 
Proklus, in his Commentary on the Timaeus, had before 
raised the same controversy with Aristotle — IWofjiivrjv Se, 
TTjv a(f)LyyofjLev7]v SrjXoL kol crvve^^^o/ievijv ov yap C09 'Ap^crro- 
TeX?;? oXerai^ tjjv KLvov/jievrjv (Procl. p. 681). Let us, there- 
fore, examine the passages of Aristotle out of ^Yhich this 
difficultv arises. 

The passages are two, both of them in the second book 
De Coelo ; one in cap. 13, the other in cap. 14 (p. 293 b. 30 
296 a. 25). 

1. The first stands — evcoc Se kol Keifjbevrjv (rrjv yrjv) iirl rod 
KevTpov cj^acrlv avrrjv tXkecrOai irepl rov Sia iTavTo<^ Terafievov 
TToXov, cocrrrep iv rco Ttfiam yeypairrai. Such is the reading 
of Bekker in the Berlin edition : but he gives various readings 
of two different MSS. — the one having 'iXkeadaL kol favelaOai 
— the other eLKelaOai kol KLvelcrBaL, 

2. The second stands, beginning chap. 11 — i)fjLel^ Be Xeyoo/uLev 



ON THE ROTATION OF THE EABTH. 255 

TTpcjTov TTorepov (the earth) e^et KiVTjacv rj /jiever KaOdirep yap 
€L7ro/ii6V, ol /jL€V avTrjv 6V Tcov darpcov ttolovo-lv, ol 8' eTrX rov 
fiecrov 0evT€^ tWecrOac koL KivelaOat c^aau irepu rov iroKov fxeaov, 

Kow in the first of these two passages, where Aristotle 
simply brings the doctrine to view without any comment, he 
expressly refers to the Timaeus, and therefore quotes the 
expression of that dialogue without any enlargement. He 
undoubtedly understands the affirmation of Plato — that the 
earth was fastened round the cosmical axis — as implying that 
it rotated along with the rotations of that axis. Aristotle 
thus construes l\\€cr0ac, in that particular proposition of the 
Timseus, as implying rotation. But he plainly did not con- 
strue 'tsXecrOai as naturally and constantly either denoting or 
implying rotation. This is proved by his language in the 
second passage, where he reproduces the very same doctrine 
with a view to discuss and confute it, and without special 
reference to the Platonic Timaeus. Here we find that he 
is not satisfied to express the doctrine by the single word 
iWecrOai. He subjoins another verb — tWeaOai koX KivetaOai : 
thus bringing into explicit enunciation the fact of rotatory 
movement, which, while cWeaOai stood alone, was only 
known by implication and inference from the circumstances 
of the particular case. If he had supposed tWeaOac by 
itself to signify revolving, the addition of fctvelcrOai would 
have been useless, unmeaning, and even impertinent. Ari- 
stotle, as Boeckh remarks, is not given to multiply words 
unnecessarilv. 

It thus appears, when we examine the passage of Aristotle, 
that he understood IXKecrOac quite in conformity with Butt- 
mann's explanation. Eotatory movement forms no part of 
the meaning of the word ; yet it may accidentally, in a 
particular case, be implied as an adjunct of the meaning, by 
virtue of the special circumstances of that case. Aristotle 
describes the doctrine as held by some persons. He doubt- 
less has in view various Platonists of his time, who adopted 
and defended what had been originally advanced by Plato in 
the Timaeus, 



256 PLATO'S DOCTRINE 

M. Boeckh, in a discussion of some length (Untersnch. p. 
76-8-i), maintains the opinion that the reading in the first 
passage of Aristotle is incorrect ; that the two words WXeaOat 
Kal KLvelaOai ought to stand in the first as they do in the 
second, — as he thinks that they stood in the copy of Sim- 
plikius : that Aristotle only made reference to Plato with a 
view to the peculiar word WXeaOai, and not to the general 
doctrine of the rotation of the earth : that he comments 
upon this doctrine as held by others, but not by Plato, who 
(according to Boeckh) was known by everyone not to hold 
it. M. Boeckh gives this only as a conjecture, and I cannot 
regard his arguments in support of it as convincing. But 
even if he had convinced me that cWeadac Kal KcvelaOac 
were the true reading in the first passage, as well as in the 
second, I should merelv say that Aristotle had not thouo:ht 
himself precluded by the reference to the Timaeus from 
bringing out into explicit enunciation what the Platonists 
whom he had in view knew to be implied and intended 
by the passage. This indeed is a loose mode of citation, 
which I shall not ascribe to Aristotle without good evi- 
dence. In the present case such evidence appears to me 
wanting.* 

M. Martin attributes to Aristotle something more than im- 
proper citation. He says (Etudes sur le Timee, vol. ii. p. 87), 
'' Si Aristote citait Topinion de la rotation de la terre comme 
un titre de gloire pour Platon, je dirais — lI est probable que 
la verite I'y a force. Mais Aristote, qui admettait I'immobilite 
complete de la terre, attribue a Platon Topinion contraire, 
pour se donner U jplaisir de la refute)* avec dedainT A few 
lines before, M. Martin had said that the arguments whereby 
Aristotle combated this opinion ascribed to Plato were " very 
feeble." I am at a loss to imagine in which of Aristotle's 



* Exactness of citation is not always to be relied on among 
ancient commentators. Simplikitis cites this very passage of the 
TimoBUS with more than one inaccuracy. — (Ad Aiistot. Be Ccelo, 
fol. 125.) 



ON THE ROTATION OF THE EAETH. 257 

phrases M. Martin finds any trace of disdain or contempt, 
either for the doctrine or for those who held it. For my 
part, I find none. The arguments of Aristotle against the 
doctrine, whatever be their probative force, are delivered in 
that brief, calm, dry manner which is usual with him, without 
a word of sentiment or rhetoric, or anything e^co rod irpdy^ 
fiaro';. Indeed, among all philosophers who have written 
much, I know none who is less open to the reproach of 
mingling personal sentiment with argumentative debate than 
Aristotle. Plato indulges frequently in irony, or sneering, 
or rhetorical invective ; Aristotle very rarely. Moreover, 
even apart from the question of contempt, the part which 
M. Martin here assumes Aristotle to be playing, is among 
the strangest anomalies in the history of philosophy. Ari- 
stotle holds, and is anxious to demonstrate, the doctrine 
of the earth's immobility ; he knows (so we are required to 
believe) that Plato not only holds the same doctrine, but has 
expressly affirmed it in the Timseus: he might have pro- 
duced Plato as an authority in his favour, and the passage 
of the Timaeus as an express declaration ; yet he prefers to 
pervert, knowingly and deliberately, the meaning of this 
passage, and to cite Plato as a hostile instead of a friendly 
authority — simply " to give himself the pleasure of con- 
temptuously refuting Plato's opinion!" But this is not all. 
M. Martin tells us that the arguments which Aristotle pro- 
duces against the doctrine are, after all, very feeble. But he 
farther tells us that there was one argument which might 
have been produced, and which, if Aristotle had produced 
it, would have convicted PJato of " an enormous contradic- 
tion " (p. 88) in affirming that the earth revolved round the 
cosmical axis. Aristotle might have said to Plato — '^ You 
have affirmed, and you assume perpetually throughout the 
Timaeus, the diurnal revolution of the outer sidereal sphere ; 
you now assert the diurnal revolution of the earth at the 
centre. Here is an enormous contradiction ; the two can- 
not stand together." — Yet Aristotle, having this triumphant 
argument in his hands, says not a word about it, but contents 



258 PLATO'S DOCTETNE 

himself with various other arguments which M. Martin pro- 
nounces to be very feeble. 

Perhaps M. Martin might say — ^' The contradiction exists; 
but Aristotle was not sharpsighted enough to perceive it ; 
otherwise he would have advanced it." I am quite of this 
opinion. If Aristotle had perceived the contradiction, he 
would have brought it forward as the strongest point in his 
controversy. His silence is to me a proof that he did not 
perceive it. But this is a part of my case against M. Martin. 
I believe that Plato admitted both the two contradictory 
doctrines without perceiving the contradiction ; and it is 
a strong presumption in favour of this view that Aristotle 
equally failed to perceive it — though in a case where, ac- 
cording to M. Martin, he did not scruple to resort to dishonest 
artifice. 

It appears to me that the difficulties and anomalies, in 
w^hich we are involved from supposing that Aristotle either 
misunderstood or perverted the meaning of Plato, are far 
graver than those w^hicli would arise from admitting that 
Plato advanced a complicated theory involving two contra- 
dictory propositions, in the same dialogue, without perceiving 
the contradiction ; more especially when the like failure of 
perception is indisputably ascribable to Aristotle, upon every 
view of the case. 

M. Cousin maintains the same interpretation of the Pla- 
tonic passage as Boeckh and Martin, and defends it by a note 
on his translation of the Timaeus (p. 339). The five argu- 
ments which he produces are considered both by himself and 
by Martin to be unanswerable. As he puts them with great 
neatness and terseness, I here bestow upon them a separate 
examination. 

1. "Platon a toujours ete considere dans I'antiquite comme 
partisan de I'immobilite absolue de la terre.'' M. Cousin 
had before said, "Aristote se fonde sur ce passage pour 
etablir que Platon a fait tourner la terre sur elle-meme : 
mais Aristote est, dans I'antiquite, le seul qui soutienne cette 
opinion." 



ON THE KOTATION OF THE EAETH. 259 

My reply is,, that Aristotle is himself a portion and 
member of antiquity, and that the various Platonists, whom 
he undertakes to refute, are portions of it also. If M. Cousin 
appeals to the authority of antiquity, it must be to antiquity, 
not merely minus Aristotle and these contemporary Platonists, 
but against them. Now these are just the witnesses who had 
the best means of knowledge. Besides which, Aristotle him- 
self, adopting and anxious to demonstrate the immobility 
of the earth, had every motive to cite Plato as a supporter, 
if Plato was such, and every motive to avoid citing Plato as 
an opponent, unless the truth of the case compelled him to 
do so. I must here add, that M. Cousin represents Aristotle 
as ascribing to Plato the doctrine that ^^la terre tourne sur 
elle-meme." This is not strictly exact. Aristotle under- 
stands the Platonic Timaeus as saying '' That the earth is 
packed and moved round the axis of the kosmos " — a different 
proposition. 

2. " Dans plusieurs endroits de ses ouvrages ou Platon 
parle de 1 equilibre de la terre, il ne dit pas un mot de sa 
rotation." 

I know of only one such passage — Phsodon, p. 108 — where 
undoubtedly Plato does not speak of the rotation of the earth ; 
but neither does he speak of the rotation of the sidereal 
sphere and of the kosmos, nor of the axis of the kosmos. 
It is the figure and properties of the earth, considered in 
reference to mankind who inhabit it, that Plato sketches in 
the Phaedon ; he takes little notice of its cosmical relations, 
and gives no general theory about the kosmos. M. Cousin 
has not adverted to the tenth Book of the Eepublic, 
where Plato does propound a cosmical theory, expressly 
symbolising the axis of the kosmos with its rotatory 
functions. 

3. *' Si la terre suit le mouvement de Taxe du monde, le 
mouvement de la huitieme sphere, qui est Le Meme, devient 
nul par rapport a elle, et les etoiles fixes, qui appartiennent 
a elle, demeurent en apparence dans una immobilite 
absolue : ce qui est contraire a Vexjperience et au sens 

s 2 



260 PLATO'S DOCTRINE 

commun, et a rojDinion de Platon, exprimee dans ce meme 
passage." 

This third argument of M. Cousin is the same as that 
which I have already examined in remarking upon M. Boeckh. 
The diurnal rotation of the earth cannot stand in the same 
astronomical system with the diurnal rotation of the sidereal 
sphere. Incontestably true (I have already said) as a point 
of science. But the question here is, not what opinions 
are scientifically consistent, but what opinions were held by 
Plato, and whether he detected the inconsistency between 
the two. I have shown grounds for believing that he did 
not, and not he alone, but many others along with him, 
Aristotle among the number. How, indeed, can this be denied, 
when we find M. Boeckh announcing that he is the first 
among all the critics on the Timaeus, who has brought for- 
ward the inconsistency as a special ground for determining 
what Plato's opinion was — that no other critic before hi in 
had noticed it ? 

The first words of this argument deserve particular atten- 
tion, " Si la terre suit le mouvement de Taxe du monde." 
Here we have an exact recital of the doctrine proclaimed 
by the Platonic Timaeus, and ascribed to him by Aristotle 
(quite different from the doctrine " qne la terre tourne sur 
elle-meme "). M. Cousin here speaks very distinctly about 
the cosmical axis, and about its movement ; thus implying 
that Plato conceived it as a solid revolving cylinder. This, 
in my judgment, is the most essential point for clearing up 
the question in debate. The cosmical axis being of this 
character, when Plato affirms that the earth is packed or 
fastened round it (se roule — Cousin : se serre et s'enroule — 
Martin : drdngt sich, mackt eine Kugel um ihn — Buttmann), 
I maintain that, in the plainest construction of the word, the 
earth does and must follow the movement of the axis, or else 
arrest the movement of the axis. The word elXo/nevrjv or 
iWo/jLevrjv has no distinct meaning at all, if it does not mean 
this. The very synonyms {crcpiryryo/jievrjp, 7r€pt86S€/,i6P7]v, &g,), 
which the commentators produce to prove that Plato describes 



ON THE ROTATION OF THE EAETH. 261 

the earth as at rest, do really prove that he describes it 
as rotating round and with the cosmical axis. We ought 
not to be driven from this plain meaning of the word, by 
the assurance of M. Cousin and others that Plato cannot have 
meant so, because it would involve him in an astronomical 
inconsistency. 

4. "Les divers mouvemens des huit spheres expliquent 
toutes les apparences celestes ; il n'y a done aucune raison 
pour donner un mouvement a la terre." 

The terms of this fourth argument, if literally construed, 
would imply that Plato had devised a complete and satis- 
factory astronomical theory. I pass over this point, and 
construe them as M. Cousin probably intended : his argu- 
ment will then stand thus — " The movement of the eartli 
does not add anything to Plato's power of explaining astro- 
nomical appearances ; therefore Plato had no motive to 
suggest a movement of the earth," 

I have already specified the sense in which I understand 
the Platonic Timaeus to affirm, or rather to imply, the 
rotation of the earth ; and that sense is not open to the 
objections raised in M. Cousin's fourth and fifth arguments. 
The rotation of the earth, as it appears in the Platonic 
Timaeus, explains nothing, and is not intended to explain 
anything. It is a consequence, not a cause : it is a conse- 
quence arising from the position of the earth, as packed or 
fastened round the centre of the cosmical axis, whereby the 
earth participates, of necessity and as a matter of course, in 
the movements of that axis. The function of the earth, thus 
planted in the centre of the kosmos, is to uphold and regulate 
the revolutions of the cosmical axis ; and this function ex- 
plains, in the scheme of the Platonic Timaeus, why the axis 
revolves uniformly and constantly without change or dis- 
placement. Now upon these revolutions of the cosmical 
axis all the revolutions of the exterior sphere depend. This 
is admitted by M. Cousin himself in argument 3. There is 
therefore every reason why Plato should assign such regu- 
lating function to the earth, the ** first and oldest of intra- 



262 PLATO^S DOCTRINE 

kosmic deities." The movement of the earth (as I before 
observed) is only an incidental consequence of the position 
necessary for the earth to occupy in performing such 
function. 

5. *^ Enfin Platen assigne un mouvement aux etoiles fixes, 
et deux mouvemens aux planetes ; puisqu'il ne range la 
terre ni avec les unes ni avec les autres, il y a lieu de croire 
qu'elle ne participe a aucun de leurs mouvemens." 

In so far as this argument is well-founded, it strengthens 
my case more than that of M. Cousin. The earth does not 
participate in the movements either of the fixed stars or 
of the planets ; but it does participate in the revolutions of 
the cosmical axis, upon which these movements depend — 
the movements of the outer sphere, wholly and exclusively 
— the movements of the planets, to a very great degree, but 
not exclusively. The earth is not ranked either among 
the fixed stars or among the planets ; it is a body or deity 
sui generis, having a special central function of its own, to 
regulate that cosmical axis which impels the whole system. 
The earth has a motion of its own, round and along with 
the cosmical axis to which it is attached ; but this motion 
of the earth (I will again repeat, to prevent misapprehension) 
is a fact not important by itself, nor explaining anything. 
The grand and capital fact is the central position and 
regulating function of the earth, whereby all the cosmical 
motions, first those of the axis, next those of the exterior 
kosmos, are upheld and kept uniform. 

M. Cousin adds, as a sixth argument : — 

^^ On pent aj outer a ces raisons que Platon aurait neces- 
sairement insiste sur le mouvement de la terre, s'il Tavait 
admis ; et que ce point etoit trop controversy de son temps 
et trop important en lui-meme, pour qu'il ne fit que I'indi- 
quer en se servant d'une expression equivoque." 

In the first place, granting Plato to have believed in the 
motion of the earth, can we also assume that he would neces- 
sarily have asserted it with distinctness and emphasis, as 
M. Cousin contends ? I think not. Gruppe maintains exactly 



ON THE KOTATION OF THE EARTH. 263 

the contrary ; telling us that Plato's language was inten- 
tionally obscure and equivocal — from fear of putting himself 
in open conflict with the pious and orthodox sentiment pre- 
valent around him. I do not carry this part of the case so 
far as Gruppe, but I admit that it rests upon a foundation of 
reality. When we read (Plutarch, De Facie in Orbe Lunse, 
p. 923) how the motion of the earth, as affirmed by Ari- 
starchus of Samos (doubtless in a far larger sense than Plato 
ever imagined, including both rotation and translation), was 
afterwards denounced as glaring impiety, we understand the 
atmosphere of religious opinion with which Plato was sur- 
rounded. And we also perceive that he might have reasons 
for preferring to indicate an astronomical heresy in terms 
suitable for philosophical hearers, rather than to proclaim 
it in such emphatic unequivocal words, as might be quoted 
by some future Meletus in case of an indictment before the 
Dikasts. 

We must remember that Plato had been actually present 
at the trial of Sokrates. He had heard the stress laid by 
the accusers on astronomical heresies, analogous to those 
of Anaxagoras, which they imputed to Sokrates, and the 
pains taken by the latter to deny that he held such opinions 
(see the Platonic Apology). The impression left by such 
a scene on Plato's mind was not likely to pass away : nor 
can we be surprised that he preferred to use propositions 
which involved and implied, rather than those which directly 
and undisguisedly asserted, the heretical doctrine of the 
earth's rotation. That his phraseology, however indirect, 
was perfectly understood by contemporary philosophers, both 
assentient and dissentient, as embodying his belief in the 
doctrine — is attested by the two passages of Aristotle. 

Upon these reasons alone I should dissent from M. Cousin's 
sixth argument. But I have other reasons besides. He rests 
it upon the two allegations that the doctrine of the earth's 
motion was the subject of much controversial debate in 
Plato's time, and of great importance in itself. Now the 
first of these two allegations can hardly be proved, as to 



264 PLATO'S DOCTRINE 

the time of Plato ; for Aristotle, when he is maintaining the 
earth's immobility, does not specify any other opponents 
than the Pythagoreians and the followers of the Platonic 
Timaeus. And the second allegation I believe to be un- 
founded, speaking with reference to the Platonic Timaeus. 
In the cosmical system therein embodied, the rotation of 
the earth round the cosmical axis, though a real part of the 
system, was in itself a fact of no importance, and deter- 
mining no results. The capital fact of the system was the 
position and function of the earth, packed close round the 
centre of the cosmical axis, and regulating the revolutions 
of that axis. Plato had no motive to bring prominently 
forward the circumstance that the earth revolved itself along 
with the cosmical axis, which circumstance was only an inci- 
dental accompaniment. 

I have thus examined all the arguments adduced by 
M. Cousin, and have endeavoured to show that they fail in 
establishing his conclusion. There is, however, one point of 
the controversy in which I concur with him more than with 
Boeckh and Martin. This point is the proper conception of 
what Plato means by tlie cosmical amis. Boeckh and Martin 
seem to assume this upon the analogy of what is now spoken 
of as the axis of the earth : M. Boeckh (p. 13) declares the 
axis of the kosmos to be a prolongation of that axis. But it 
appears to me (and M. Cousin's language indicates the same) 
that Plato's conception was something very different. The 
axis of the earth (what astronomers speak of as such) is an 
imaginary line traversing the centre of the earth ; a line 
round which the earth revolves. Now the cosmical axis, as 
Plato conceives it, is a solid material cylinder, which not 
only itself revolves, but causes by this revolution the. revo- 
lution of the exterior circumference of the kosmos. This 
is a conception entirely different from that which we mean 
when we speak of the axis of the earth. It is, however, a 
conception symbolically enunciated in the tenth book of the 
Eepublic, where the spindle of Necessity is said to be com- 
posed of adamant, hard and solid material, and to cause by 



ON THE KOTATION OF THE EARTH. 265 

its own rotation the rotation of all the verticilU packed and 
fastened around it. What is thus enunciated in the Re- 
public is implied in the Timseus. For when we read therein 
that the earth is packed or fastened round the cosmical axis, 
how can we understand it to be packed or fastened round an 
imaginary line? I will add that the very same meaning- 
is brought out in the translation of Cicero — " trajedo axe 
susiinetur'' (terra). The axis, round which the earth is 
fastened, and which sustains the earth, must be conceived, 
not as an imaginary line, but as a solid cylinder, itself 
revolving ; while the earth, being fastened round it, revolves 
round and along with it. The axis, in the sense of an ima- 
ginary line, cannot be found in the conception of Plato. 

Those contemporaries of Plato and Aristotle, who all 
agreed in asserting the revolution of the celestial sphere, did 
not all agree in their idea of the force whereby such revolu- 
tion was brought about. Some thought that the poles of the 
celestial sphere exercised a determining force : others sym- 
bolised the mythical Atlas, as an axis traversing the sphere 
from pole to pole and turning it round. (Aristotel. De 
Motu Animal. 3. p. 699 a. 15-30. ) Aristotle himself advo- 
cated the theory of a primum movens imm.ohile acting- upon 
the sphere from without the sphere. Even in the succeeding 
centuries, when astronomy was more developed, Aratus, 
Eratosthenes, and their commentators, differed in their way 
of conceiving the cosmical axis. Most of them considered it 
as solid : but of these, some thought it was stationary, with 
the sphere revolving round it, others that it revolved itself : 
again, among these latter, some believed that the revolutions 
of the axis determined those of the surrounding sphere, 
others, that the revolutions of the sphere caused those of the 
axis within it. Again, there were some physical philoso- 
phers who looked at the axis as airy or spiritual — to Sea 
fjueaov TYj^ (7(f)aLpa^ Sltjkov Trvev/jua. Then there were geo- 
meters who conceived it only as an imaginary line. (See 
the Ph£enomena of Aratus 20-25 — with the Scholia thereon ; 
Achilles Tatius ad Arati Phaenom. apul Petavium — lira- 



266 PLATO'S DOCTEINE 

nolog. p. 88 ; also HipparcTius ad Arat. ib. p. 144.) I do not 
go into these dissentient opinions farther than to show, how 
indispensable it is, when we construe the passage in the 
Platonic Timseus, ire pi rov Sta Travrb^; ttoXov rera/Jievov, to 
enquire in what sense Plato understood the cosmical axis : 
and how unsafe it is to assume at once that he must have 
conceived it as an imagiDary line. 

Proklus argues that because the earth is mentioned by- 
Plato in the Phsedon as stationary in the centre of the 
heaven, we cannot imagine Plato to affirm its rotation in 
the Timseus. I agree with M. Boeckh in thinking this ar- 
gument inconclusive ; all the more, because, in the Phaedon, 
not a word is said either about the axis of the kosmos, or 
about the rotation of the kosmos ; all that Sokrates pro- 
fesses to give is Tr)V ISeav r?;? 7^9 /cat tov<; tottov^^ avT7]<; 
(p. 108 E). No cosmical system or theory is propounded in 
that dialogue. 

When we turn to the Phaedrus, we find that, in its highly 
poetical description, the rotation of the heaven occupies a 
prominent place. The internal circumference of the heavenly 
sphere, as well as its external circumference or back {ySyrov), 
are mentioned ; also its periodical rotations, during which 
the Gods are carried round on the back of the heaven, 
and contemplate the eternal Ideas occupying the super- 
celestial space (p. 247, 248), or the plain of truth.* But 
the purpose of this poetical representation appears to be 
metaphysical and intellectual, to illustrate the antithesis 
presented by the world of Ideas and Truth on one side, 
against that of sense and appearances on the other. Astro- 
nomically and cosmically considered, no intelligible meaning 
is conveyed. Nor can we even determine whether the 
rotations of the heaven, alluded to in the Phaedrus, are in- 
tended to be diurnal or not ; I incline to believe not (fjiexpi^ 



* Wlietlier 'Ecrrta in the Phcedrus, which is said " to remain alone 
stationary in the house of the Gods," can be held to mean the Earth, 
is considered by Proklus to be uncertain (p. 681). 



ON THE KOTATION OF THE EARTH. 267 

Tfj<; eT6pa<; irepcoSov — p. 248 — which can hardly be under- 
stood of so short a time as one day). Lastly, nothing is said 
in the Phaedrus about the cosmical axis ; and it is upon this 
that the rotations of the earth intimated in the Timseus 
depend. 

Among the different illustrations, given by Plato in his 
different dialogues respecting the terrestrial and celestial 
bodies, I select the tenth book of the Eepublic as that which 
is most suitable for comparison with the Timaeus, because it 
is only therein that we learn how Plato conceived the axis of 
the kosmos. M. Boeckh (Untersuchungen, p. 86) wishes us 
to regard the difference between the view taken in the 
Phsedon, and that in the Eepublic, as no way important; he 
affirms that the adamantines pindle in the Eepublic is alto- 
gether mythical or poetical, and that Plato conceives the 
axis as not being material. On this point I dissent from M. 
Boeckh. The mythical illustrations in the tenth book of the 
Eepublic appear to me quite unsuitable to the theory of an 
imaginary, stationary, and immaterial axis. Here I much 
more agree with Gruppe (p. 15, 26-29), who recognises the 
solid material axis as an essential feature of the cosmical 
theory in the Eepublic; and recognises also the marked 
difference between that theory and what we read in the 
Phaedon. Yet, though Gruppe is aware of this important 
difference between the Eepublic and the Phaedon, he stiU 
wishes to illustrate the Timaeus by the latter and not by the 
former. He affirms that the earth in the Timaeus is con- 
ceived as unattached, and freely suspended, the same as in 
the Phaedon ; but that in the Timaeus it is conceived, besides, 
as revolving on its own axis, which we do not find in the 
Phaedon (p. 28, 29). Here I think Gruppe is mistaken. In 
constriiing the words of Timaeus, eiXo/jievrjv (IWofjuevrjv) irepi 
TOP Sici Travjo^; ttoXov rerafievov, as designating "the un- 
attached earth revolving round its own axis, " he does vio- 
lence not less to the text of Plato than to the expository 
comment of Aristotle. Neither in the one nor the other is 
anything said about an axis of the earth ; in both, the cos- 



268 PLATO'S DOCTRIXE 

mical axis is expressly designated ; and, if Gruppe is right 
in his interpretation of eikofievrjv, we must take Plato as 
affirming, not that the earth is fastened roimd the cosmical 
axis, but that it revolves, though unattached, around that 
axis, which is a proposition both difficult to understand, 
and leading to none of those astronomical consequences with 
which Gruppe would connect it. Again, when Gruppe says 
ihoX eiXofJLevrjv irepl does not mean pacJced or fastened round, 
but that it does mean revolving round, he has both the 
analogies of the word and the other commentators against 
him. The main proof, if not the only proof, which he 
brings, is that Aristotle so construed it. Upon this point 
I join issue with him. I maintain that Aristotle does %ot 
understand €i\o/iev7]v or IWo/jL6vt]v irepl as naturally meaning 
revolving round, and that he does understand the phrase as 
vieQi\img fastened round. When we find him, in the second 
passage of the treatise De Ccelo, not satisfied with the verb 
iWeadac alone, but adding to it the second verb Kal KLvel- 
a 9 at, we may be sure that he did not consider IXkeaOac as 
naturally and properly denoting to revolve or move round. 

Agreeing as I do with Gruppe in his view, that the inter- 
pretation put by Aristotle is the best evidence which we can 
follow in determining the meaning of this passage in the 
Timseus, I contend that the authority of Aristotle contradicts 
instead of justifying the conclusion at which he arrives. 
Aristotle understands iWofjievrjv as meaning packed or fast- 
ened round ; he does not understand it as meaning, when 
taken by itself, revolving round. 

The two meanings here indicated are undoubtedly distinct 
and independent. But they are not for that reason contra- 
dictory and incompatible. It has been the mistake of critics 
to conceive them as thus incompatible ; so that if one of the 
two were admitted, the other must be rejected. I have en- 
deavoured to show that this is not universally true, and that 
there are certain circumstances in which the two meanings 
not only may come together, but must come together. Such 
is the case when we revert to Plato's conception of the 



ON THE EOTATION OF THE EAETH. 269 

cosmical axis as a solid revolving cylinder. That whicli is 
packed or fastened around the cylinder must revolve around 
it, and along with it. 

Both M. Boeckh and Gruppe assume the incompatibility 
of the two meanings ; and we find the same assumption in 
Plutarch's criticisms on the Timseus (Plutarch. Quaest. 
Platon. p. 1006 C), where he discusses what Plato means by 
opyava ^p6vov\ and in what sense the earth as well as the 
moon can be reckoned as opyavov %poz/oi; (Timseus, p. 41 E, 
42 D). Plutarch inquires how it is possible that the earth, 
if stationary and at rest, can be characterised as " among the 
instruments of time ; " and he explains it by saying that this 
is true in the same sense as we call a gnomon or sun-dial 
an instrument of time, because, though itself never moves, it 
marks the successive movements of the shadow. This expla- 
nation might be admissible for the phrase opyavov yjpovov ; 
but I cannot think that the immobility of the earth can be 
made compatible with the attribute which Plato bestows upon 
it of being </)i;\a^ KciX hrniLov pyo^ vvfcro^ re koX ri/jbepa<;. 

The difficulty, however, vanishes when we understand the 
function ascribed by Plato to the earth as I have endea- 
voured to elucidate it. The earth not only is not at rest, 
but cannot be at rest, precisely because it is packed round 
the solid revolving cosmical axis, and must revolve along 
with it. The function of the earth, as the first and oldest of 
intra-kosmic deities, is to uphold and regulate the revolutions 
of this axis, upon which depend the revolutions of the 
sidereal sphere or outer shell of the kosmos. It is by virtue 
of this regulating function' (and not by virtue of its rotation) 
that the earth is the guardian and artificer of night and day. 
It is not only " an instrument of time," but the most potent 
and commanding among all instruments of time. 

What has just been stated is, in my belief, the theory of 
the Platonic Timaeus, signified in the words of that dialogue, 
and embodied in the comment of Aristotle. The commen- 
tators, subsequent to Aristotle, so far as we know them, 
understood the theory in a sense different from what Plato 



270 PLATO'S DOCTEIXE 

intended. I think we may see how this misconception arose. 
It arose from the great deyelopment and elaboration of 
astronomical theory during the two or three generations 
immediately succeeding Plato. Much was added by Eudoxus 
and others, in their theory of concentric spheres : more 
still by others of whom we read in Cicero (Academ. II. 39.) 
'* Hicetas Syracusius, ut ait Theophrastus, coelum, solem, 
lunam, stellas, supera denique omnia, stare censet, neque 
praster terram rem ullam in mundo moveri : quae cum 
circum axem se summa celeritate convertat et torqueat, 
eadem effici omnia, quae si stante terra coelum moveretur. 
Atque hoc etiam Platonem in Timaeo dicere quidam arbi- 
trantur, sed pauUo obscurius." The same doctrine is said to 
have been held by Herakleides of Pontus, the contemporary 
of Aristotle, and by others along with him. (Simplikius ad 
Aristot. Physic, p. 64 — De Ccelo, p. 132 — Plutarch. Plac. 
Phil. III. 13.) The doctrine of the rotation of the earth 
here appears along with another doctrine — the immobility of 
the sidereal sphere and of the celestial bodies. The two 
are presented together, as correlative portions of one and 
the same astronomical theory. There are no celestial revo- 
lutions, and therefore there is no solid celestial axis. More- 
over, even Aristarchus of Samos (who attained to a theory 
substantially the same as the Copernican, with the double 
movement of the earth, rotation round its own axis, and 
translation round the sun as a centre) comes within less than 
a century after Plato's death. 

Though the quidam alluded to by Cicero looked upon the 
obscure sentence in Plato's Timseus as a dim indication of 
the theory of Hicetas, yet the two agree only in the sup- 
position of a rotation of the earth, and differ essentially in 
the pervading cosmical conceptions. Hicetas states distinctly 
that which his theory denies, as well as that which it affirms. 
The negation of the celestial rotations, is in his theory a 
point of capital and co-ordinate importance, on which he 
contradicts both Plato and Aristotle as well as the apparent 
evidence of sense. I cannot suppose that this theory can 



ON THE ROTATION OF THE EARTH. 271 

have been proclaimed or known to Aristotle wlien his works 
were composed : for the celestial revolutions are the keystone 
of his system, and he could hardly have abstained from 
combating a doctrine which denied them altogether. In the 
hands of Hicetas (perhaps in those of Herakleides, if we may 
believe what is said about him) astronomy appears treated as 
a science by itself, with a view "to provide such hypotheses 
as may save the phenomena" (aco^eLV ra (^aivofjieva, Simpl. 
ad Aristot. De Coelo, p. 498, Schol. Brandis). It becomes 
detached from those religious, ethical, poetical, teleological, 
arithmetical decrees or fancies, in which we see it immersed 
in the Platonic Timaeus, and even (though somewhat less) in 
the Aristotelian Treatise De Coelo. Hence the meaning of 
Plato, obscurely announced from the beginning, ceased to 
be understood; the solid revolving axis of the Kosmos, 
assumed without being expressly affirmed in his Timeeus, 
dropped out of sight: the doctrine of the rotation of the 
earth was presented in a new point of view, as a substitute 
for the celestial revolutions. But no proper note was taken 
of this transition. The doctrine of Plato was assumed to be 
the same as that of Hicetas. 

When we read Plutarch's criticism (Quaest. Plat. p. 1006 C) 
upon the word IWo/jLevrjv, we see that he puts to himself the 
question thus — *' Does Plato in the Timaeus conceive the earth 
as kept together and stationary — or as turning round and 
revolving, agreeably to the subsequent theory of Aristarchus 
and Seleukus ? " Here we find that Plutarch conceives the 
alternative thus — Either the earth does not revolve at all, or 
it revolves as Aristarchus understood it. One or other of 
these two positions must have been laid down by Plato in 
the Timaeus. So we read in Plutarch. But the fact is, *that 
Plato meant neither the one nor the other. The rotation of 
the earth round the solid cosmical axis, which he affirms 
in the Timaeus, is a phenomenon utterly different from the 
rotation ofthe earth as a free body round the imaginary line 
called its own axis, which was the doctrine of Aristarchus. 

When expositors in Plutarch's day, and since his day, 



272 . PLATO'S DOCTRINE 

enquired whether or not the Platonic Timaeiis affirmed the 
rotation of the earth, they meant to designate the rotation 
of the earth in the sense of Aristarchus, and in the sense 
in which modern astronomy understands tliat capital fact. 
Now speaking the language of modern astronomy, I think 
it certain that the rotation of the earth is not to be found 
affirmed in tlie Platonic Tinueus ; and I agree with M. 
Boeckh when he says (Untersuch. p. 77), "Granting that 
Aristotle ascribed to Plato the doctrine of the rotation of 
the earth, he at least did not ascribe to him the doctrine 
as Gruppe assumes, and as now understood.". As between 
Gruppe — who holds that the Platonic Timaeus affirms the 
rotation of the earth, and that Aristotle ascribes it to him, 
in our sense of the words — and M. Boeckh, who denies this 
— I stand with the latter for the negative. But when M. 
Boeckh assumes that the only alternative doctrine is the 
immobility of the earth, and tries to show that this doctrine 
is proclaimed in the Platonic Timaeus — nay, that no opposite 
doctrine can be proclaimed, because the discourse expressly 
announces the rotation of the sidereal heaven in twenty-four 
hours — I am compelled to dissent from him as to the con- 
clusion, and to deny the cogency of his proof. M. Boeckh 
has hardly asked himself the question, whether there was 
not some other sense in which Plato might have affirmed it 
in the Timaeus. I have endeavoured to show that there was 
another sense ; that there are good analogies in Plato to justify 
the belief that he intended to arm the doctrine in that 
other sense ; and that the comments of Aristotle — -while 
thoroughly pertinent, if we thus understand the passage in 
the Timaeus — become either irrelevant, dishonest, or absurd, if 
we construe the passage as signifying either what is main^ 
tained by M. Boeckh or what is maintained by Gruppe. 

The eminent critics, whose opinions I here controvert, 
have been apparently misled by the superior astronomical 
acquirements of the present age, and have too hastily made 
the intellectual exigencies of their own minds a standard for 
all other minds, in different ages as well as in different states 



ON THE ROTATION OF THE EARTH. 273 

of cultivation. The question before us is, not what doctrines 
are scientijScally true or scientifically compatible with each 
other, but what doctrines were affirmed or implied by Plato. 
In interpreting him, we are required to keep our minds inde- 
pendent of subsequent astronomical theories. We must look, 
first and chiefly, to what is said by Plato himself ; next, if 
that be obscure, to the construction and comments of his con- 
temporaries so far as they are before us. In no case is this 
more essential than in the doctrine of the rotation of the 
earth, which in the modern mind has risen to its proper rank 
in scientific importance, and has become connected with col- 
lateral consequences and associations foreign to the ideas of 
the ancient Pythagoreans, or Plato, or Aristotle. Unless we 
disengage ourselves from these more recent associations, 
we cannot properly understand the doctrine as it stands in 
the Platonic Timaeus. 

This doctrine, as I have endeavoured to explain it, leads 
to an instructive contrast between the cosmical theories of 
Plato (in the Timseus) and Aristotle. 

Plato conceives the kosmos as one animated and intelligent 
being or god, composed of body and soul. Its body is moved 
and governed by its soul, which is fixed or rooted in the 
centre, but stretches to the circumference on all sides, as well 
as all round the exterior. It has a perpetual movement of 
circular rotation in the same unchanged place, which is the 
sort of movement most worthy of a rational and intelligent 
b^ing. The revolutions of the exterior or sidereal sphere 
(Circle of the Same) depend on and are determined by the 
revolutions of the solid cylinder or axis, which traverses the 
kosmos in its whole diameter. Besides these, there are 
various interior spheres or circles (Circles of the Different) 
which rotate by distinct and variable impulses in a direction 
opposite to the sidereal sphere. This latter is so much more 
powerful than they, that it carries them all round with it ; 
yet they make good, to a certain extent, their own special 
opposite movement, which causes their positions to be ever 
changing, and the whole system to be complicated. But 



274 PLATO'S DOCTRINE 

the grand capital, uniform, overpowering, movement of the 
kosmos, consists in the revolution of the solid axis, which 
determines that of the exterior sidereal sphere. The impulse 
or stimulus to this movement comes from the cosmical soul, 
which has its root in the centre. Just at this point is 
situated the earth, ^' the oldest and most venerable of intra- 
kosmic deities," packed round the centre of the axis, and 
having for its function — to guard and regulate those revo- 
lutions of the axis, and through them tliose of the outer 
sphere, on which the succession of day and night depends — 
as well as to nurse mankind. 

In all this we see that the ruling principle and force of the 
kosmos (to rjyefjiovLKov rod koct/jlov) is made to dwell in and 
emanate from its centre. 

When w^e come to Aristotle, we find that the ruling prin- 
ciple or force of the kosmos is placed, not in its centre, 
but in its circumference. He reco2:nises no solid revolvins: 
axis traversing the whole diameter of the kosmos. The 
interior of the kosmos is occupied by the four elements — 
earth, water, air, fire — no one of which can revolve except 
by violence or under the pressure of extraneous force. 
To each of them rectilinear motion is natural ; earth 
moves naturally towards the centre — fire moves naturally 
towards the circumference, away from the centre. But the 
peripheral substance of the kosmos is radically distinct 
from the four elements : rotatory motion in a circle is 
natural to it, and is the only variety of motion natural 
to it. That it is moved at all, it owes to a p^imum 
movens immobile impelling it : but the two are coeternal, and 
the motion has neither beginning nor end. That when 
moved, its motion is rotatory and not rectilinear, it ow^es to 
its own nature. It rotates perpetually, through its own 
nature and inherent virtue, not by constraining pressure 
communicated from a centre or from a soul. If constraint 
were required — if there were any contrary tendency to be 
overcome — the revolving periphery would become fatigued, 
and would require periods of repose ; but, since in revolving 



ON THE ROTATION OF THE EARTH. 275 

it only obeys its own peculiar nature, it persists for ever 
without knowing fatigue. This peripheral or fifth essence, 
perpetually revolving, is the divine, venerable, and com- 
manding portion of the kosmos, more grand and honourable 
than the interior parts or the centre. Aristotle lays this 
down (De Coelo, ii. 13, p. 293, b. 10) in express antithesis 
to the Pythagoreans, who, (like Plato) considered the centre 
as the point of grandeur and command, placing fire in the 
centre for that reason. The earth has no positive cosmical 
function in Aristotle ; it occupies the centre because all its 
parts have a natural movement towards the centre : and it 
is unmoved because there must he something in the centre 
which is always stationary, as a contrary or antithesis to the 
fifth essence or peripheral substance of the kosmos, which is 
in perpetual rotation by its own immutable nature. 

I do not here go farther into the exposition of these 
ancient cosmical theories. I have adverted to Aristotle's 
doctrine only so far as was necessary to elucidate, by contrast, 
that which I believe to be the meaning of the Platonic 
Timseus about the rotation of the earth. 



T 2 



EEVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL 



ON THU 



PHILOSOPHY OF SIR WM. HAMILTON. 



{Westminster Review ^ 1866.) 



EEVIEW OF JOHN STUAET MILL 



OK THE 



PHILOSOPHY OF SIR WM. HAMILTON. 



The work* bearing the above title is an octavo volume, 
consisting of twenty-eight chapters, and five hundred and 
sixty pages. This is no great amount of print; but the 
amount of matter contained in it is prodigious, and the 
quality of that matter such as to require a full stretch of 
attention. Mr. Mill gives his readers no superfluous sen- 
tences, scarcely even a superfluous word, above what is 
necessary to express his meaning briefly and clearly. Of 
such a book no complete abstract can be given in the space 
to which we are confined. 

To students of philosophy — doubtless but a minority 
among the general circle of English readers — this work 
comes recommended by the strongest claims both of interest 
and instruction. It presents in direct antithesis two most 
conspicuous representatives of the modern speculative mind 
of England — Sir W. Hamilton and Mr. John Stuart Mill, 

Sir W, Hamilton has exercised powerful influence over 
the stream of thought during the present generation. The 
lectures on Logic and Metaphysics delivered by him at 
Edinburgh, for twenty years, determined the view taken of 
those subjects by a large number of aspiring young students, 



* An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, and of 
the Principal Philosophical Questions discussed in his Writings. By 
John Stuart Mill. London : Longmans. 1865. 



280 EEYIEW OF JOHN STUAKT MILL 

and determined that view for many of tliem permanently 
and irrevocably * Several eminent teachers and writers of 
the present day are proud of considering themselves his 
disciples, enunciate his doctrines in greater or less proportion, 
and seldom contradict him without letting it be seen that 
they depart unwillingly from siich a leader. Various new 
phrases and psychological illustrations have obtained footing 
in treatises of philosophy, chiefly from his authority. We 
do not number ourselves among his followers ; but we think 
his influence on philosophy was in many ways beneficial. 
He kept up the idea of philosophy as a subject to be studied 
from its own points of view : a dignity which in earlier times 
it enjoyed, perhaps, to mischievous excess, but from which 
in recent times it has far too much receded — especially in 
England. He performed the great service of labouring 
strenuously to piece together the past traditions of philo- 
sophy, to re-discover those which had been allowed to drop 



* Mr. Mansel and Mr. Veitch, the editors of Sir W. Hamilton's 
Lectures on Metaphysics, postlmmously published, say in their pre- 
face (p. xiii.) — 

" For twenty years — from 1836 to 1856 — the courses of logic 
and metaphysics were the means through which Sir William 
Hamilton sought to discipline and imbue with his philosophical 
opinions the numerous youth who gathered from Scotland and 
other countries to his class-room ; and while, by these prelections, 
the author supplemented, developed, and moulded the national 
philosophy, leaving thereon the ineffaceable impress of his genius 
and learning, he, at the same time and by the same means, exercised 
over the intellects and feelings of his pupils an influence which, for 
depth, feeling and elevation, was certainly never surpassed by that 
of any philosophical instructor. Among his pupils there are not a 
few who, having lived for a season under the constraining power 
of his intellect, and been led to reflect on those great questions 
regarding the character, origin, and bounds of human knowledge, 
which his teaching stirred and quickened, bear the memory of their 
beloved and revered instructor inseparably blended with what is 
highest in their present intellectual life, as well as in their practical 
aims and aspirations." 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 281 

into oblivion, and to make out the genealogy of opinions as 
far as negligent predecessors had still left the possibility of 
doing so. 

The forty-six lectures on Metaphysics, and the thirty-five 
lectures on Logic, published by Messrs. Mansel and Yeitch, 
constitute the biennial course actually delivered by Sir 
W. Hamilton in the Professorial Chair. They ought there- 
fore to be looked at chiefly with reference to the minds 
of youthful hearers, as preservatives against that mischief 
forcibly described by Bousseau — " L'inhabitude de penser 
dans la jeunesse en ote la capacite pendant le reste de 
la vie." 

Now, in a subject so abstract, obscure, and generally un- 
palatable, as Logic and Metaphysics, the difficulty which the 
teacher finds in inspiring interest is extreme. That Sir W. 
Hamilton overcame such difficulty with remarkable success, 
is the affirmation of his two editors ; and our impression, as 
readers of his lectures, disposes us to credit them. That 
Sir W. Hamilton should have done this effectively is in 
itself sufficient to stamp him as a meritorious professor — as 
a worthy successor to the chair of Dugald Stewart, whose 
unrivalled perfection in that department is attested by every 
one. Many a man who ultimately adopted speculative 
opinions opposed to Dugald Stewart, received his first 
impulse and guidance in the path of speculation from the 
lasting impression made by Stewart's instructions. 

But though we look at these lectures, as they ought to 
be looked at, chiefly with a view to the special purpose for 
which they were destined, we are far from insinuating that 
they have no other merits, or that they are useless for 
readers who have already a metaphysical creed of their own. 
We have found them both instructive and interesting : they 
go over a large portion of the field of speculative philosophy, 
partly from the point of view (not always the same) be- 
longing to the author, partly from that of numerous pre- 
decessors whom he cites. We recognise also in Sir W. 
Hamilton an amount of intellectual independence which seldom 



282 EEVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL 

accompanies such vast erudition. He recites many different 
opinions, but he judges them all for himself ; and, what is of 
still greater moment, he constantly gives the reasons for his 
judgments. To us these reasons are always of more or less 
value, whether we admit them to be valid or not. Many 
philosophers present their own doctrine as if it were so much 
ascertained and acknowledged truth, either intimating, or lead- 
ing you to suppose, that though erroneous beliefs to the con- 
trary formerly prevailed, these have now become discredited 
with every one. We do not censure this way of proceeding, 
but we prefer the manner of Sir W. Hamilton. He always 
keeps before us divergence and discrepancy of view as the 
normal condition of reasoned truth or philosophy ; the clia- 
racteristic postulate of which is, that every affirmative and 
every negative shall have its appropriate reasons clearly and 
fully enunciated. 

In this point of view, the appendix annexed to the lectures 
is also valuable ; and the four copious appendixes or dis- 
sertations following the edition of Keid's works, are more 
valuable still. How far Sir W. Hamilton has there furnished 
good proof of his own doctrines on External Perception, 
and on the Primary Qualities of Matter, we shall not now 
determine ; but to those who dissent from him, as well as 
to those who agree with him, his reasonings on these subjects 
are highly instructive : while the full citations from so many 
other writers contribute materially not only to elucidate the 
points directly approached, but also to enlarge our know- 
ledge of philosophy generally. We set particular value 
upon this preservation of the traditions of philosophy, and 
upon this maintenance of a known perpetual succession 
among the speculative minds of humanity, with proper 
comparisons and contrasts. We have found among the 
names quoted by Sir W. Hamilton — thanks to his care — 
several authors hardly at all known to us, and opinions 
cited from them not less instructing than curious. He 
deserves the more gratitude, because he departs herein from 
received usage since Bacon and Descartes. The example 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 283 

set by these great men was admirable, so far as it went 
to throw off the authority of predecessors ; but pernicious 
so far as it banished those predecessors out of knowledge, 
like mere magazines of immaturity and error. Throughout 
the eighteenth century, all study of the earlier modes of 
philosophizing was, for the most part, neglected. Of such 
neglect, remarkable instances are pointed out by Sir W. 
Hamilton. 

While speaking about the general merits and philosophical 
position of Sir William Hamilton, we have hitherto said 
nothing about those of Mr. MiU. But before we proceed to 
analyse the separate chapters of his volume, we must devote 
a few words to the fulfilment of another obligation. 

Mr. John Stuart Mill has not been the first to bestow 
honour on the surname which he bears. His father, Mr. 
James Mill, had already ennobled the name. An ampler 
title to distinction in history and philosophy can seldom be 
produced than that which Mr. James Mill left behind him. 
We know no work which surpasses his ' History of British 
India ' in the main excellences attainable by historical 
writers : industrious accumulation, continued for many years, 
of original authorities ; careful and conscientious criticism of 
their statements; and a large command of psychological 
analysis, enabling the author to interpret phenomena of 
society, both extremely complicated, and far removed from 
his own personal experience. Again, Mr. James Mill's 
' Elements of Political Economy ' were, at the time when 
they appeared, the most logical and condensed exposition of 
the entire science then existing. Lastly, his latest avowed 
production, the ' Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human 
Mind,' is a model of perspicuous exposition of complex states 
of consciousness, carried farther than by any other author 
before him ; and illustrating the fulness which such exposi- 
tion may be made to attain, by one who has faith in the 
comprehensive principle of association, and has learnt the 
secret of tracing out its innumerable windings. It is more- 
over, the first work in which the great fact of Indissoluble 



284 REVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL 

Association is brought into its due theoretical prominence. 
These are high merits, of which lasting evidence is before 
the public ; but there were other merits in Mr. James Mill, 
less publicly authenticated, yet not less real. His un- 
premeditated oral exposition was hardly less effective than 
his prepared work with the pen ; his colloquial fertility on 
philosophical subjects, his power of discussing himself, and 
of stimulating others to discuss, his ready responsive in- 
spirations through all the shifts and windings of a sort of 
Platonic dialogue, — all these accomplishments were, to those 
who knew him, even more impressive than what he composed 
for the press. Conversation with him was not merely in- 
structive, but provocative to the dormant intelligence. Of 
all persons whom we have known, Mr. James Mill was the 
one who stood least remote from the loftv Platonic ideal of 
Dialectic — Toy hihovai koX Sex^aOaL \6yov — (the giving and 
receiving of reasons) competent alike to examine others, or 
to be examined by them on philosophy. 'WTien to this we 
add a strenuous character, earnest convictions, and single- 
minded devotion to truth, with an utter disdain of mere 
paradox, it may be conceived that such a man exercised 
powerful intellectual ascendency over younger minds. 
Several of those who enjoyed his society — men now at 
or past the maturity of life, and some of them in distin- 
guished positions — remember and attest with gratitude such 
ascendancv in their own cases : among: them the writer of 
the present article, who owes to the historian of British 
India an amount of intellectual stimulus and guidance such 
as he can never for ofet. 

AVhen a father, such as we have described, declining to 
send his son either to school or college, constituted himself 
schoolmaster from the beginning, and performed that duty 
with laborious solicitude — when, besides fall infusion of 
modern knowledge, the forcing process applied by the 
Platonic Socrates to the youthful Theaetetus, was adminis- 
tered by Mr. James Mill, continuously and from an earlier 
age, to a youthful mind not less pregnant than that of 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIE W. HAMILTON. 285 

Theaetetus — it would be surprising if the son tlius trained 
had not reached even a higher eminence than his father. 
The fruit borne by Mr. John Stuart Mill has been worthy of 
the culture bestowed, and the volume before us is at once 
his latest and his ripest product. 

The ^ Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy ' 
is intended by Mr. Mill (so he tells us in the preface to the 
sixth published edition of his ' System of Logic, Eatiocinative 
and Inductive ') as a sequel and complement to that system. 
We are happy to welcome so valuable an addition ; but with 
or without that addition, the ' System of Logic ' appears to 
us to present the most important advance in speculative 
theory which the present century has witnessed. Either 
half of it, the Eatiocinative or the Inductive, would have 
surpassed any previous work on the same subject. The 
Inductive half discriminates and brings into clear view, for 
the fii'st time, those virtues of method which have insensibly 
grown into habits among consummate scientific enquirers of 
the post-Baconian age, as well as the fallacies by which some 
of these authors have been misled ; the Eatiocinative half, 
dealing with matters which had already been well handled 
by Dutrieu and other scholastic logicians, invests their dead 
though precise formalism with a real life and application 
to the actual process of finding and proving truth. But 
besides thus working each half up to perfection, Mr. Mill 
has performed the still more difficult task of overcoming the 
repugnance, apparently an inveterate repugnance, between 
them, so as chemically to combine the two into one homo- 
geneous compound ; thus presenting the problem of Eeasoned 
Truth, Inference, Proof, and Disproof, as one connected 
whole. For ourselves, we still recollect the mist which was 
cleared from our minds when we first read the * System of 
Logic,' very soon after it was published. We were familiar 
with the Syllogistic Logic in Burgersdicius and Dutrieu ; we 
were also familiar with examples of the best procedure in 
modern inductive science ; but the two streams flowed alto- 
gether apart in our minds, like two parallel lines never 



286 REVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL 

joining nor approaching. The irreconcileability of the two 
was at once removed, when we had read and mastered the 
second and third chapters of the Second Book of the ' System 
of Logic;' in which Mr. Mill explains the functions and 
value of the syllogism, and the real import of its major 
premiss. This explanation struck us at the time as one 
the most profound and original efforts of metaphysical 
thought that we had ever perused, and we see no reason to 
retract that opinion now.* It appears all the more valuable 
w^hen we contrast it with what is said by Mr. Mill's two 
contemporaries — Hamilton and Whately : the first of whom 
retains the ancient theory of Eeasoning, as being only a 
methodised transition from a whole to its parts, and from the 
parts up to the whole — Induction being only this ascending 
part of the process, whereby, after having given a complete 
enumeration of all the compound parts, you conclude to 
the sum total described in one word as a whole ;t while 



* We are tappy to find such high authorities as Dr. Whewell, 
Mr. Samuel Bailey, and Sir John Herschel concurring in this esti- 
mation of the new logical point of view thus opened by Mr. Mill. 
We mil not call it a discovery, since Sir John Herschel thinks the 
expression unsuitable. — See the recent sixth edition of the System 
of Logic, vol. i. p. 229. 

t See Sir William Hamilton's Lectures on Logic (Lect. xvii. pp. 
320-321 ; also Appendix to those Lectures, p. 361). He here dis- 
tinguishes also formal induction from material induction, which 
latter he brings under the grasp of syllogism, by an hypothesis 
in substance similar to that of Whately. There is, however, in 
Lecture xix. (p. 380), a passage in a very different spirit, which 
one might almost imagine to have been written by Mr. Mill : — 
" In regard to simple syllogisms, it was an original dogma of the 
Platonic school, and an early dogma of the Peripatetic, that science, 
strictly so called, was only conversant with, and was exclusively 
contained in, universals ; and the doctrine of Aristotle, which taught 
that all our general knowledge is only an induction from an obser- 
vation of particulars, was too easily forgotten or perverted by his 
followers. It thus obtained almost the force of an acknowledged 
principle, that everything to be known must be known under some 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 287 

tlie second (Whately) agrees in subordinating Induction to 
Syllogism, but does so in a dijQferent way — by representing 
inductive reasoning as a syllogism, with its major premiss 
suppressed, from which major premiss it derived its au- 
thority. The explanation of Mr. Mill attacks the problem 
from the opposite side. It subordinates syllogism to in- 
duction, the technical to the real ; it divests the major 
premiss of its illusory pretence to be itself the proving 
authority, or even any real and essential part of the proof ; 
and acknowledges it merely as a valuable precautionary test 
and security for avoiding mistake in the process of proving. 
Taking Mr. Mill's ' System of Logic ' as a whole, it is one 
of the books by which we believe ourselves to have most 
profited. The principles of it are constantly present to our 
mind when engaged in investigations of evidence, whether 
scientific or historical. 

Concerned as we are here with Mr. Mill only as a logician 
and philosopher, we feel precluded from adverting to his 



general form or notion. Hence the exaggerated importance attri- 
buted to definition and deduction ; it not being considered that we 
only take out of a general notion what we had previously placed 
therein, and that the amplification of our knowledge is not to be 
sought for from above but from below — not from speculation about 
abstract generalities, but from the observation of concrete parti- 
culars. But however erroneous and irrational, the persuasion had 
its day and influence, and it perhaps determined, as one of its effects, 
the total neglect of one half, and that not the least important half, 
of the reasoning process." 

These very just observations are suggested to Sir William Ha- 
milton by a train of thought which has little natural tendency to 
suggest them, viz., by the distinction upon which he so much insists, 
between the logic of comprehension and the logic of extension, and 
by his anxiety to explain why the former had been exclusively 
cultivated, and the latter neglected. 

That which Sir William Hamilton calls here truly the doctrine 
of Aristotle (at least, in one place at the close of the Analyt, Post.), 
and which he states to have been forgotten by Aristotle's followers, 
was hardly less forgotten or neglected by Aristotle himself. 



288 EEVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL 

works on other topics — even to his 'Elements of Political 
Economy/ by which he is probably more widely known than 
by anything else. Of the many obligations which Political 
Economy owes to him, one only can be noticed consistent 
with the scope of the present article : the care which he has 
taken — he alone, or at least, he more explicitly and formally 
than any other expositor — to set forth the general position 
of that science in the a2:2:reo:ate field of scientific research : 
its relation to sociology as a whole, or to other fractions 
thereof, how far derivative or co-ordinate ; what are its 
fundamental postulates or hypotheses, with what limits the 
logical methods of induction and deduction are applicable 
to it, and how far its conclusions may be relied on as 
approximations to truth. All these points will be found 
instructively handled in the Sixth Book of Mr. Mill's ' Sys- 
tem of Logic,' as well as in his smaller and less known 
work, * Essays on Some Unsettled Questions in Political 
Economy.' We find him, while methodiziug and illustrating 
the data of the special science, uniformly keeping in view 
its relation to philosophy as a whole. 

Hut there is vet another work in which the interests of 
philosophy, as a whole, come into the foreground and become 
the special object of vindication in their largest compass 
and most vital requirements. We mean Mr. Mill's ' Essay 
on Liberty,' one half of which takes for its thesis the lihertas 
^Tiilosopliandi, He maintains, emphatically, in this book the 
full dignity of reasoned truth against all the jealous exi- 
gencies of traditional dogma and self-justifying sentiment. 
He claims the most unreserved liberty of utterance for nega- 
tive and affirmative on all questions — not merely for the 
purpose of discriminating truth from falsehood, but also to 
keep up in individual minds the full sense and understand- 
ing of the matters controverted, in place of a mere partial 
and one-sided adhesion. At first sio:ht, indeed, it mio-ht 
seem as if Mr. Mill was fighting with a shadow ; for liberty 
of philosophizing is a postulate which, in general terms, 
every one concedes. But when you come to fathom the real 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON* 289 

feelings which underlie this concession, you discover that 
almost every man makes it under reserves which, though 
acting in silence, are not the less efficacious. Every one has 
some dogmas which* he cannot bear to hear advocated, and 
others which he will not allow to be controverted in his 
presence. A writer has to consider not merely by what 
reasons any novelty of belief or disbelief may be justified, 
but also how much it will be safe for him to publish, having 
regard to the irritable sore places of the public judgment. 
In July, 1864, we were present at the annual meeting of the 
French Academy at Paris, where the prizes for essays sent 
in, pursuant to subjects announced for study beforehand, are 
awarded. We heard the titles of various compositions an- 
nounced by the President (M. Yillemain), with a brief critical 
estimate of each. Their comparative merits were appreciated, 
and the prize awarded to one of the competitors. Among the 
compositions sent to compete for the prize, one was a work 
by M. Taine, upon which the President bestowed the most 
remarkable encomiums, in every different point of view : 
extent of knowledge, force of thought, style, arrangement, 
all were praised in a manner which we have rarely heard 
exceeded. Nevertheless, the prize was not awarded to this 
work, but to another which the President praised in a 
manner decidedly less marked and emphatic. What was here 
the ratio decidendi ? The reason was, and the President 
declared it in the most explicit language, that the work of 
M. Taine was deeply tainted with materialism. " Sans doute," 
said the esteemed veteran of French literature in pro- 
nouncing his award, ''sans doute les opinions sont libres, 
mais^ — It is precisely against this mais — ushering in the 
special anathematised or consecrated conclusion which it is 
intended to except from the general liberty of enforcing or 
impugning — in matters of philosophical discussion, that Mr. 
Mill, in the ' Essay on Liberty,' declares war as champion of 
Eeasoned Truth. 

He handles this grand theme — iX€v6epov<; iXev6ep(o<; ^cXo- 
ao(l)elv — involving as it does the best interests of philosophy, 

] V 



290 - KEVIEW OF JOHN STUAET MILL 

as an instructress to men's judgments, and a stimulus to 
their intelligence — with great depth of psychological analysis 
sustained by abundant historical illustration. And he in the 
same volume discusses most profitably another question akin 
to it — To what extent and by what principles the interference 
of others is justifiable, in restraining the liberty of taste and 
action for each individual ? A question at once grave and 
neglected, but the discussion of which does not belong to 
our present article. 

A new work from one who has already manifested such 
mastery of philosophy, both in principle and in detail, and 
a work exhibiting the analysis and appreciation of the philo- 
sophical views of an eminent contemporary, must raise the 
highest expectation. We think no reader will be disap- 
pointed who peruses Mr. Mill's ^ Examination,' and we shall 
now endeavour to give some account of the manner in which 
he performs it. Upon topics so abstract and subtle as the 
contents of this volume, the antithesis between two rival 
theories is the best way, and often the only way, for bringing 
truth into clear view ; and the ' Examination ' here before us 
is professedly controversy. But of controversy in its objec- 
tionable sense — of captious or acrimonious personality — not 
a trace will here be found. A dignified, judicial equanimity 
of tone is preserved from first to last. Moreover, though 
the title and direct purpose of the volume is negative and 
critical, yet the destructive criticism is pervaded by many 
copious veins of constructive exposition, embodying Mr. Mill's 
own views upon some of the most intricate problems of 
metaphysics. 

Mr. Mill begins his work by analysing and explaining the 
doctrine called the Eelativity of Human Knowledge : — 

" The doctrine (chap. ii. p. 5) which is thought to belong in 
the most especial manner to Sir W. Hamilton, and which was the 
ground of his opposition to the transcendentalism of the later 
French and German metaphysicians, is that which he and others 
have called the Eelativity of Human Knowledge, It is the subject 
of the most generally known and impressive of all his writings — the 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF STE W. HAMILTON. 291 

one which first revealed to the English metaphysical reader that a 
new power had arisen in philosophy. Together with its develop- 
ments, it composes the Philosophy of the Conditioned, which he 
opposed to the French and German philosophies of the Absolute, 
and which is regarded by most of his admirers as the greatest of his 
titles to a permanent place in the history of metaphysical thought. 
But ' the relativity of human knowledge,' like most other phrases 
into which the words relative or relation enter, is vague, and admits 
of a great variety of meanings," &c. 

Mr. Mill then proceeds to distinguish these various 
meanings, and to determine in which of them the phrase is 
understood by Sir W. Hamilton. 

One meaning is, that we only know anything by knowing 
it as distinguished from something else — that all conscious- 
ness is of difference. It is not, however, in this sense that 
the expression is ordinarily or intentionally used by Sir W. 
Hamilton, though he fully recognises the truth which, when 
thus used, it serves to express. In general, when he says that 
all our knowledge is relative, the relation he has in view 
is not between the thing known and other objects com- 
pared with it, but between the thing known and the mind 
knowing — (p. 6). 

The doctrine in this last meaning is held by different 
philosophers in two different forms. Some {e.g., Berkeley, 
Hume, Ferrier, &c.), usually called Idealists, maintain not 
merely that all we can possibly know of anything is the 
manner in which it affects the human faculties, but that 
there is nothing else to be known ; that affections of human 
or of other minds are all that we can know to exist — that 
the difference between the ego and the non-ego is only a 
formal distinction between two aspects of the same reality. 
Other philosophers (Brown, Mr, Herbert Spencer, Auguste 
Comte, with many others) believe that the ego and the 
non-ego denote two realities, each self-existent, and neither 
dependent on the other ; that the Noumenon, or " thing ;per 
se," is in itself a different thing from the Phenomenon, and 
equally or more real, but that, though we know its existence, 

u 2 



292 EEVIEW OF JOHN STUAET MILL 

we have no means of knowing what it is. All that we can 
know is, relatively to ourselves, the modes in which it affects 
us, or the phenomena which it produces — (pp. 9-11). 

The doctrine of Eelativity, as held by Kant and his many 
followers, is next distinguished from the same doctrine as 
held by Hartley, James Mill, Professor Bain, &c., compatible 
with either acceptance or rejection of the Berkeleian theory. 
Kant maintains that the attributes which we ascribe to out- 
ward things, or which are inseparable from them in thought, 
contain additional elements, over and above sensations j^lus 
an unknowable cause — additional elements added by the 
mind itself, and therefore still only relative, but constituting 
the original furniture of the mind itself — inherent laws, 
partly of our sensitive, partly of our intellectual faculty. 
It is on this latter point that Hartley and those going along 
with him diverge. Admitting the same additional elements, 
these philosophers do not ascribe to the mind any innate 
forms to account for them, but hold that Place, Extension, 
Substance, Cause, and the' rest, &c., are conceptions put to- 
gether out of ideas of sensation, by the known laws of Asso- 
ciation — (pp. 12-14.) 

Partial Eelativity is the opinion professed by most philo- 
sophers (and by most persons who do not philosophise). 
They hold that we know things partly as they are in them- 
selves, partly as they are merely in relation to us. 

This discrimination of the various schools of philosophers 
is highly instructive, and is given with the full perspicuity 
belonging to Mr. Mill's style. He proceeds to examine in 
what sense Sir W. Hamilton maintained the Relativity of 
Human Knowledge. He cites passages both from the ' Dis- 
cussions on Philosophy ' and from the Lectures, in which 
that doctrine is both affirmed in its greatest amplitude, and 
enunciated in the most emphatic language — (pp. 17, 88, 22, 
23.) But he also produces extracts from the most elaborate 
of Sir W. Hamilton's ' Dissertations on Eeid,' in which a 
doctrine quite different and inconsistent is proclaimed — that 
our knowledge is only partially, not wholly, relative ; that the 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 293 

secondary qualities of matter, indeed, are known to us only 
relatively, but that the primary qualities are known to us 
as they are in themselves, or as they exist objectively, and 
that they may be even evolved by demonstration a 'priori — 
(pp. 19-26, 30). The inconsistency between the two doc- 
trines, professed at different times and in different works by 
Sir W. Hamilton, is certainly manifest. Mr. Mill is of opinion 
that one of the two must be taken " in a non-natural sense," 
and that Sir W. Hamilton either did not hold, or had ceased 
to hold, the doctrine of the full relativity of knowledge, 
(pp. 20-28) — the hypothesis of a flat contradiction being in 
his view inadmissible. But we think it at least equally pos- 
sible that Sir W. Hamilton held both the two opinions in 
their natural sense, and enforced both of them at different 
times by argument ; his attention never having been called 
to the contradiction between them. That such forgetfulness 
was quite possible, will appear clearly in many parts of the 
present article. His argument in support of both is equally 
characterised by that peculiar energy of style which is fre- 
quent with him, and which no way resembles the qualifying 
refinements of one struggling to keep clear of a perceived 
contradiction. 

From hence Mr. Mill (chap, iv.) proceeds to criticise at 
considerable length what he justly denominates the cele- 
brated and striking review of Cousin's philosophy, which 
forms the first paper in Sir W. Hamilton's ^ Discussions on 
Philosophy.' According to Mr. Mill — 

" The question really at issue is this : Have we or have we not 
an immediate intuition of God ? The name of God is veiled under 
two extremely abstract phrases, ' The Infinite and the Absolute,' 
perhaps from a reverential feeling ; such, at least, is the reason 
given by Sir W. Hamilton's disciple, Mr. Mansel, for preferring 
the more vague expressions ; but it is one of the most unquestion- 
able of all logical maxims, that the meaning of the abstract must 
be sought for in the concrete, and not conversely ; and we shall see, 
both in the case of Sir William Hamilton and of Mr. Mansel, that 
the process cannot be reversed with impunity." — p. 32. 



294 REVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL 

Upon this we must remark, that though the '' logical 
maxim " here laid down by Mr. Mill may be generally sound, 
we think the application of it inconvenient in the present 
case. Discussions on points of philosophy are best conducted 
without either invoking or offendiug religious feeling. M. 
Cousin maintains that we have a du'ect intuition of the Infi- 
nite and the Absolute : Sir W. Hamilton denies that we have. 
Upon this point Mr. Mill sides entirely with Sir W. Hamilton, 
and considers *' that the latter has rendered good service 
to philosophy by refuting M. Cousin," though much of the 
reasoning employed in such refutation seems to Mr. Mill 
unsound. But Sir W. Hamilton goes further, and affirms 
that we have no faculties capable of apprehending the Infi- 
nite and the Absolute — that both of them are inconceivable 
to us, and by consequence unknowable. Herein Mr. Mill is 
opposed to him, and controverts his doctrine in an elaborate 
argument. 

Of this argument, able and ingenious, like all those 
in the present volume, our limits only enable us to give a 
brief appreciation. In so far as Mr. Mill controverts Sir W. 
Hamilton, we think him perfectly successful, though there 
are some points of his reasoning in which we do not fully 
concur. 

In our opinion, as in his, the Absolute alone (in its sense 
as opposed to relative) can be declared necessarily unknow- 
able, inconceivable, incogitable. Nothing which falls under 
the condition of relativity can be declared to be so. The 
structure of our minds renders us capable of knowing every- 
thing which is relative, though there are many such things 
wliich we have no evidence, nor shall ever get evidence, 
to enable us to know. Now the Infinite falls within the 
conditions of relativity, as indeed Sir W. Hamilton himself 
admits, when he intimates (p. 58) that though it cannot be 
known, it is, must be, and ought to be, helieved by us, accord- 
inor to the marked distinction which he draws between belief 
and knowledge. We agree with Mr. Mill in the opinion that 
it is thinkable, conceivable, knowable. Doubtless we do not 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIE W. HAMILTON. 295 

conceive it adequately, but we conceive it sufficiently to 
discuss and reason upon it intelligibly to ourselves and 
others. That we conceive the Infinite inadequately, is not 
to be held as proof that we do not conceive it at all ; for in 
regard to finite things also, we conceive the greater number 
of them only inadequately. 

We cannot construe to the imagination a polygon with an 
infinite number of sides (i.e., with a number of sides greater 
than any given number), but neither can we construe to the 
imagination a polygon with a million of sides ; nevertheless, 
we understand what is meant by the first description as well 
as by the second, and can reason upon both. There is, indeed, 
this difference between the two : That the terms used in 
describing the first proclaim at once in their direct meaning 
that we should in vain attempt to construe it to the imagina- 
tion; whereas the terms used in describing the second do 
not intimate that fact. We know the fact only by trial, or 
by an estimate of our own mental force which is the result 
of many past trials. If the difference here noted were all 
which Sir W. Hamilton has in view when he declares the 
Infinite to be unknowable and incogitable, we should accede 
to his opinion ; but we apprehend that he means much 
more, and he certainly requires more to justify the marked 
antithesis in which he places himself against M. Cousin and 
Hegel. Indeed, the facility with which he declares matters 
to be incogitable, which these two and other philosophers 
not only cogitate but maintain as truth, is to us truly sur- 
prising. The only question which appears to us important 
is, whether we can understand and reason upon the meaning 
of the terms and propositions addressed to us. If we can, 
the subjects propounded must be cogitable and conceivable, 
whether we admit the propositions afflrmed concerning them 
or not ; if we cannot, then these subjects are indeed inco- 
gitable by ourselves in the present state of our knowledge, 
but they may not be so to our opponent who employs the 
terms. 

In criticising the arguments of Sir W. Hamilton against 



296 EEVIEW OF JOHN STUAKT MILL 

M. Cousin, Mr. Mill insists much on a distinction between 
(1) the Infinite, and (2) the Infinite in any one or more 
positive attributes, such as infinite wisdom, goodness, redness, 
hardness, &c * He thinks that Sir W. Hamilton has made 
out his case against the first, but not against the last ; that 
the first is really "an unmeaning and senseless abstraction," 
a fasciculus of negations, unknowable and inconceivable, but 
not the last. We think that Mr. Mill makes more of this 
distinction than the case warrants ; that the first is not un- 
meaning, but an intelligible abstraction, only a higher reach 
of abstraction, than the last ; that it is knowable inadequately, 
in the same way as the last, though more inadequately, be- 
cause of its higher abstraction. 

As the Finite is intelligible, so also is its negation — the 
Infinite : we do not say (with M. Cousin) that the two are 
conjointly given in consciousness, but the two are under- 
stood and partially apprehended by the mind, conjointly and 
in contrast. Though the Infinite is doubtless negative as 
to degree^ it is not wholly or exclusively negative, since it 
includes a necessary reference to some positive attribute, 
to which the degree belongs ; the positive element is not 
eliminated, but merely left undetermined. The Infinite 
(like the Finite, to Treirepacrfjievov — to aireipov) is a genus ; 
it comprehends under it the Infinitely Hard and the In- 
finitely Soft, the Infinitely Swift and the Infinitely Slow 
— the infinite, in short, of any or all positive attributes. 
It includes, doubtless, "a farrago of contradictions;" but 
so, also, does the Finite ; and so, also, do the actual mani- 
festations of the real, concrete universe, which manifes- 
tations constitute a portion of the Finite. Whoever 
attempts to give any philosophical account of the gene- 
ration of the universe, tracing its phenomena as an ag- 
gregate, to some ultra-phenomenal origin, must include 



* The distinction is given by Stier and other logicians. 1. In- 
finitum simpliciter. 2. Infinitum secundinn quid, sive in certo 
genere. 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 297 

in his scheme a fundamentum for all those opposite and 
contradictory manifestations which experience discloses in 
the universe. There always have been, and still are, many 
philosophers who consider the Abstract and General to be 
prior both in nature and time to the Concrete and Par- 
ticular; and who hold further that these two last are 
explained, when presented as determinate and successive 
manifestations of the two first, which they conceive as indeter- 
minate and sempiternal. Now the Infinite (ens Infinitum 
or entia Infinita, according to the point of view in which we 
look at it) is a generic word, including all these supposed in- 
determinate antecedents ; and including therefore, of course, 
many contradictory agencies. But this does not make it 
senseless or unmeaning ; nor can we distinguish it from " the 
Infinite in some one or more given attributes, " by any other 
character than by greater reach of abstraction. We cannot 
admit the marked distinction which Mr. Mill contends for — 
that the one is unknowable and the other knowable. 

It may be proper to add, that the mode of philosophising 
which we have just described is not ours. We do not agree 
in this way either of conceiving, or of solving, the problem 
of philosophy. But it is a mode so prevalent that Trend e- 
lenberg speaks of it, justly enough, as " the ancient Hysteron- 
Proteron of Abstraction. " The doctrine of these philoso- 
phers appears to us unfounded, but we cannot call it 
unmeaning. 

In another point, also, we differ from Mr. Mill respecting 
that inferior abstraction which he calls " the Infinite in some 
particular attribute." He speaks as if this could be known 
not only as an abstraction, a conceivable, an ideal, but also 
as a concrete reality ; as if " we could know a concrete reality 
as infinite or as absolute" (p. 45) ; as if there really existed 
in actual nature "concrete persons or things possessing 
infinitely or absolutely certain specific attributes" — (pp. 
55-93). To this doctrine we cannot subscribe. As we 
understand concrete reality, we find no evidence to believe 
that there exist in nature any real concrete persons or things, 



298 REVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL 

possessing to an infinite degree such attributes as they do 
possess : e. g,, any men infinitely wise or infinitely strong, 
any horses infinitely swift, any stones infinitely hard. Such 
concrete real objects appear to us not admissible, because 
experience not only has not certified their existence in any 
single case, but goes as far to disprove their existence as it 
can do to disprove anything. All the real objects in nature 
known to us by observation are finite, and possess only 
in a finite measure their respective attributes. Upon this is 
founded the process of Science, so comprehensively laid out 
by Mr. Mill in his ' System of Logic ' — Induction, Deduction 
from general facts attested by Induction, Verification by ex- 
perience of the results obtained by Deduction. The attri- 
butes, whiteness or hardness, in the abstract, are doubtless 
infinite ; that is, the term will designate, alike and equally, 
any degree of whiteness or hardness which you may think 
of, and any unknown degree even whiter and harder than 
what you think of. But when perceived as invested in a 
given mass of snow or granite before us, they are divested 
of that indeterminateness, and become restricted to a deter- 
minate measure and degree. 

Having thus indicated the points on which we are com- 
pelled to dissent from Mr. Mill's refutation of Sir W. 
Hamilton in the pleading against M. Cousin, we shall pass 
to the seventh chapter, in which occurs his first controversy 
with Mr. Mansel. This passage has excited more interest, 
and will probably be remembered by a larger number of 
readers, than any portion of the book. We shall give it in 
his own words (pp. 99-103), since the energetic phraseology 
is quite as remarkable as the thought : — 

" There is but one way for Mr. Mansel out of this difficulty, and 
he adopts it. He must maintain not merely that an Absolute Being 
is unknowable in himself, but that the Eelative attributes of an 
Absolute Being are unknowable also.* He must say that we do 



* This doctrine has been affirmed (so far as reason is concerned, 
apart from revelation) not merely by Mr. Mansel, but also by Pascal, 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMn.TOK 299 

not know what Wisdom, Justice, Benevolence, Mercy, &c., are, as 
they exist in God. Accordingly, he does say so. ' It is a fact,' 
says Mr. Mansel, ' which experience forces upon us, and which it 
is useless, were it possible, to disguise, that the representation of 
God after the model of the highest human morality which we are 
capable of conceiving, is not sufficient to account for all the pheno- 
mena exhibited by the course of His natural Providence. The 
infliction of physical suffering, the permission of moral evil, the 
adversity of the good, the prosperity of the wicked, the crimes of 
the guilty involving the misery of the innocent, the tardy ap- 
pearance and partial distribution of moral and religious knowledge 
in the world — these are facts which no doubt are reconcileable, we 
know not how, with the Infinite Goodness of God, but which cer- 
tainly are not to be explained on the supposition that its sole and 
sufficient type is to be found in the finite goodness of man.' 

" In other words," continues Mr. Mill, commenting, " it is neces- 
sary to suppose that the infinite goodness ascribed to God is not 
the goodness w^hich we know and love in our fellow-creatures, 
distinguished only as infinite in degree ; but is different in kind, 
and another quality altogether. Accordingly Mr. Mansel combats 
as a heresy of his opponents, the opinion that infinite goodness 
differs only in degree from finite goodness. — Here, then, I take my 
stand upon the acknowledged principle of logic and of morality ; 
that when we mean different things we have no right to call them 
by the same name, and to apply to them the same predicates, moral 
and intellectual. If instead of the glad tidings that there exists a 
Being in whom all the excellencies which the highest human mind 
can conceive, exist in a degree inconceivable to us, I am informed 
that the world is ruled by a Being whose attributes are infinite, 
but what they are we cannot learn, except that the highest human 
morality does not sanction them — convince me of this, and I will 
bear my fate as I may. But when I am told that I must believe 
this, and at the same time call this Being by the names which 



one of the most religious philosophers of the seventeenth century, 
in the Pensees : — 

" Parlous selon les lumieres naturelles. S'il y a un Dieu, il est 
infiniment incomprehensible ; puisque, n' ay ant ni principes ni 
bornes, il n'a nul rapport a nous ; nous sommes done incapables 
de connaitre ni ce qu'il est, ni s'il est." (See Arago, Biographie de 
Condorcet, p. Ixxxiv., prefixed to his edition of Condorcet's works). 



300 REVIEW OF JOHN STUAKT MILL 

express and affirm the higtest human morality, I say, in plain terms, 
that I will not. Whatever power such a Being may have over me, 
there is one thing which he shall not do ; he shall not compel me 
to worship him. I will call no being good, who is not what I mean 
when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures ; and if such a 
being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell 
I wiU go." 

This concluding declaration is memorable in many ways. 
Mr. Mill announces his resolution to determine for himself, 
and according to his own reason and conscience, what God 
he will worship, and what God he will not worship. For 
ourselves, we cordially sympathize with his resolution. But 
Mr. Mill must be aware that this is a point on which society 
is equally resolved that no individual shall determine for 
himself, if they can help it.* Each new-born child finds his 
religious creed ready prepared for him. In his earliest days 



* The indictment under which Socrates was condemned at Athens, 
as reported by Xenophon at the commencement of the Memorabilia, 
ran thus : — " Socrates is guilty of crime, inasmuch as he does not 
believe in those Gods in whom the City believes, but introduces 
other novelties in regard to the Gods ; he is guilty also, inasmuch 
as he corrupts the youth." 

These words express clearly a sentiment entertained, not merely 
by the Athenian people, but generally by other societies also. They 
all agree in antipathy to free, individual, dissenting reason, though 
that antipathy manifests itself by acts, more harsh in one place, 
less harsh in another. The Hindoo who declares himself a convert 
to Christianity, becomes at the same time an. outcast (acfypyp-ayp, 
aOefXL(TTo<s, avicTTLos) among those whose Gods he has deserted. As 
a general fact, the man who dissents from his fellows upon funda- 
mentals of religion, purchases an undisturbed life only by being 
content with that " semi-liberty under silence and concealment," 
for which Cicero was thankful under the dictatorship of Julius 
Caesar. " Obsecro — abjiciamus ista, et semi-liberi saltem simus ; 
quod assequemur et tacendo et latendo " (Epist. ad Attic, xiii. 31). 
Contrast with this the memorable declaration of Socrates, in the 
Platonic Apology, that silence and abstinence from cross-examina- 
tion were intolerable to him ; that life would not be worth having 
under such conditions. 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 301 

of unconscious infancy, the stamp of the national, gentile, 
phratric, Grod, or Gods, is imprinted upon him by his elders ; 
and if the future man, in the exercise of his own independent 
reason, acquires such convictions as compel him to renounce 
those Gods, proclaiming openly that he does so — he must 
count upon such treatment as will go far to spoil the value 
of the present life to him, even before he passes to those 
ulterior liabilities which Mr. Mill indicates in the distance. 
We are not surprised that a declaration so unusual and so 
impressive should have been often cited in critical notices 
of this volume ; that during the month preceding the last 
Westminster election, it was studiously brought forward by 
some opponents of Mr. Mill, and more or less regretted 
by his friends, as likely to offend many electors, and damao-e 
his chance of success; and that a conspicuous and noble 
minded ecclesiastic, the Dean of Westminster, thought the 
occasion so grave as to come forward with his characteristic 
generosity for the purpose of shielding a distinguished man 
suspected of heresy. 

The sublime self-assertion, addressed by Prometheus to 
Zeus, under whose sentence he was groaning, has never before 
been put into such plain English.* Mr. Mill's declaration 
reminds us also of Hippolytus, the chaste and pure youth, 
whose tragic fate is so beautifully described by Euripides. 
Hippolytus is exemplary in his devotions to the Goddess 



* ^schyl. PrometJi. 996-1006 :— 

TTphs ravra, pLirrecrda} ^\v al9a\ov(T(ra ^Ab|, 
XevKoirrepcf} Se vicpd^i kol ^poyrrj/uLacrLV 
XOoyioLS KVKaTU) iravra kol rapacra^Tco' 

yvajx^^i yap ovdev rcouBe fi 

elaeXQiric (re fxr}Tro6^, ws eyco, Aios 
yvic/JLTju (pol3T]6€\s, OtjXvvovs y^vfjCo/uLai^ 
KOL Knraprjo'u) rhv jxiya (Trvyovfxevoi/ 
yvuatKOfjLifjLois virrLafffxaaiv xepwj/, 
Xvcrai /U€ hecr^oov rcoude' rod iraurhs Sew. 

Also V. 1047, et seq. The memorable ode of Goethe, entitled 
Prometheus, embodies a similar vein of sentiment in the finest 
poetry. 



302 REVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL 

Artemis ; but tie dissents from all his countrymen, and 
determines for himself, in refusing to bestow the smallest 
mark of honour or worship upon Aphrodite, because he con- 
siders her to be a very bad Goddess.* In this refusal he 
persists with inflexible principle (even after having received, 
from an anxious attendant, warning of the certain ruin which 
it will briug upon him), until the insulted Aphrodite involves 
him along with the unhappy Phaedra and Theseus himself, 
in one common abyss of misery. In like manner, Mr. Mill's 
declaration stands in marked contrast with the more cautious 
proceeding of men like Herodotus. That historian, alike 
pious and prudent, is quite aware that all the Gods are 
envious and mischief-making, and expressly declares them 
to be so.t Yet, far from refusing to worship them on that 
account, he is assiduous in prayer and sacrifice — perhaps, 
indeed, all the more assiduous from what he believes about 
their attributes ;f being persuaded (like the attendant w^lio 
warned Hippolytus) that his only chance of mollifying their 
ungentle dispositions in regard to himself is, by honorific 
tribute in words and offerings. 

When, however, after appreciating as we are bound to do, 
Mr. Mill's declaration of subjective sentiment, we pass to its 



* Euripid. Hippol, 10 : — 

Aph. 6 yap jll^ (drjcews TraTs, ^A/nd^ovos tokgs, 
fxSvos TToXiTuv rrjade yris TpoL^rjvias 
Xeyei KaKiaTir)V haLjxovoiv irecfyvKej/af 

^oilBou 5' ad^Xcprjv ^Aprefxiu 

Tifia, /x€yi(TT7]u ^aifxovwv yiyovfx^vos' 
Hipp, rriv arju Se Kvirpiv ttJw* iycD x^'^P^*-^ Aeyco. — (112.) 

See also v. 1328-1402. 

"j* Herodot. i. 32. ^O Kpotcre, lincrTafLevov jxc to Oetov 7rav iov (f>0o^ 
V€p6v T€ Kot rapa^coSe?, eTreipwras avOpixiTrrjiCDV TrprjyfjLOLTCov irept ; also 

iii. 40. 

1 See Eurip. Hipp, 6-96-140. The language of the attendant, 
after his affectionate remonstrance to Hippolytus had been disre- 
garded, supplicating Aphrodite to pardon the recalcitrancy of that 
virtuous hut obstinate youth, is characteristic and touching 
(114-120). 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 303 

logical bearing on the controversy between liim and Mr. 
Mansel, we are obliged to confess that in this point of view 
it has little objective relevancy. The problem was, how to 
reconcile the actual evil and suffering in the universe (which 
is recited as a fact by Mr. Mansel, though in terms con- 
veying a most inadequate idea of its real magnitude) with 
the goodness of God. Mr. Mill repudiates the explanatory 
hypothesis tendered by Mr. Mansel as a solution, but without 
suggesting any better hypothesis of his own. For ourselves, 
we are far from endorsing Mr. Mansel's solution as satis- 
factory ; yet we can hardly be surprised if he considers it 
less unsatisfactory than no solution at all. And vfhen we 
reflect how frequently and familiarly predicates applicable 
to man are applied to the Supreme Being, when they can- 
not possibly be understood about Him in the same sense, 
we see no ground for treating the proceeding as disingenuous, 
which Mr. Mill is disposed to do. Indeed, it cannot easily 
be avoided: and Mr. Mill himself furnishes us with some 
examples in the present volume. At page 491, he says : — 

" It would be difficult to find a stronger argument in favour of 
Theism, than that the eye must have been made by one who sees, 
and the ear by one who hears." 

In the words here employed, seeing and hearing are pre- 
dicated of God. 

Now when we predicate of men, that they see or hear^ 
we affirm facts of extreme complexity, especially in the case 
of seeing ; facts partly physical, partly mental, involving 
multifarious movements and agencies of nerves, muscles, and 
other parts of the organism, together with direct sensational 
impressions, and mental reconstruction of the past, in- 
separably associated therewith ; all which, so far as they are 
known, are perspicuously enumerated in the work of Pro- 
fessor Bain* on the ' Senses and the Intellect.' Ao:ain, Mr. 



* See especially his chapter ii. 'On the Sensations of Sight,' 
pp. 222, 241-217, in the second edition of this work. 



304 REVIEW OF JOHN STUAET MILL 

Mill speaks (in p. 102 and elsewhere) of " the yerar*ity o f 
God." When we say of our neighbour that he is a yeracious 
man, we ascribe to him a habit of speaking the truth ; that 
is, of employing his physical apparatus of speech, and his 
mental power of recalling and recombining words lodged in 
the memory, for the purpose of asserting no other propo- 
sitions except such as declare facts which he knows, or 
beliefs which he really entertains. But how either seeing, 
or hearing, or veracity, in these senses, can be predicated of 
God, we are at a loss to understand. And if they are to be 
predicated of God in a different sense, this admits the same 
license as Mr. Mansel contends for in respect to Goodness, 
when he feels that undeniable facts preclude him from 
predicating that epithet univocally respecting God and 
respecting man.* 

On the whole, it seems to us, that though Mr. Mill will 
consent to worship only a God of perfect goodness, he has 
thrown no new light on the grave problem — frankly stated, 
though imperfectly solved, by Mr. Mansel — how such a 
conception of God is to be reconciled with the extent of evil 
and suffering actually pervading human life and animal life 
throughout the earth. V^^e are compelled to say, respecting 
Mr. Mill's treatment of this subject — what we should not 
say respecting his treatment of any other — that he has 
left an old perplexing problem not less perplexing than he 
found it. 

Reverting, not unwillingly, from theology to philosophy, 
we now pass on to Mr. ^lill's ninth chapter (p. 128 seq.), of 
the Interpretation of Consciousness. There is assuredly no 
lesson more requiring to be taught than the proper mode of 



* Descartes says, in his Principia PhilosopMcB, i. 51 : " Et quidem 
substantia quse nulla plane re indigeat, unica tantum potest in- 
telligi — nempe Deus. Alias vero omnes, non nisi ope concursus 
Dei existere posse perspieimus. Atque ideo nomen substantiaB non 
convenit Deo et illis univoce, ut dici solet in scholis ; hoc est, nulla 
ejus nominis significatio potest distinete intelligi, quae Deo et crea- 
turis sit communis." 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 305 

conducting such interpretation ; for the number of different 
modes in which Consciousness has been interpreted is 
astonishing. Mr. Mill begins by citing from Sir W. Hamil- 
ton's lectures a passage of some length, upon which he 
bestows considerable praise, regarding it as — 

" One of the proofs that, whatever may be the positive value of 
his (Sir W. Hamilton's) achievements in metaphysics, he had a 
greater capacity for the subject than many metaphysicians of high 
reputation ; and particularly than his two distinguished predecessors 
in the same school of thought — ' Eeid and Stewart.' " — p. 131. 

This is one of the greatest compliments to Sir W. 
Hamilton that the book contains, and as such we are glad 
to cite it. 

On the subject of Consciousness, Mr. Mill has cited from 
Sir W. Hamilton other good observations besides the one 
last alluded to ; but, unfortunately, these are often neutral- 
ised by opposite or inconsistent opinions also cited from 
other parts of his works. The number of such inconsisten- 
cies produced is indeed one remarkable feature in Sir W. 
Hamilton's philosophical character. He seems to follow out 
energetically (as Plato in his various dialogues) the vein of 
thought pervading his mind at each particular moment, 
without troubling himself to look back upon his own prior 
speculations. Even compared with the best views of Sir 
W. Hamilton, however, Mr. Mill's mode of handling the 
subject of Consciousness exhibits signal improvement. To 
some of his observations we shall call particular attention. 

All philosophers agree that what Consciousness testifies is 
to be believed ; but they differ much on the question — To 
what points Consciousness does testify? and even on the 
still deeper question — How shall we proceed to ascertain 
what are these attested points ? What is the proper method 
of studying or interrogating Consciousness ? Upon this, Mr. 
Mill remarks (pp. 145-147) : — 

" Here emerges the distinction between two different methods 
of studying the problems of metaphysics ; forming the radical dif- 

X 



306 REVIEW OF JOHN STUAET MILL 

ference between the two great schools into which metaphysicians 
are divided. One of these I shall call, for distinction, the intro- 
spective method ; the other, the i^sycliologicaL M. Cousin observes 
that Locke went wrong from the beginning, by j)lacing before him- 
self, as the question to be first resolved, the origin of our ideas. 
This (he says) was commencing at the wrong end. The proper 
course would have been to begin by determining what the ideas 
now are ; to ascertain what it is that Consciousness now tells us ; 
postponing till afterwards the attempt to frame a theory concerning 
the origin of any of the mental phenomena. 

" I accept the question as M. Cousin states it ; and I contend 
that no attempt to determine what are the direct revelations of 
Consciousness can be successful, or entitled to any regard, unless 
preceded by what M. Cousin says ought only to follow it — an 
enquiry into the origin of our acquired ideas. For we have it not 
in our power to ascertain, by any direct process, what Conscious- 
ness told us at the time when its revelations were in their pristine 
purity. It only offers itself to our inspection as it exists now, 
when those original revelations are overlaid and buried under a 
mountainous heap of acquired notions and perceptions. 

" It seems to M. Cousin, that if we examine, with care and 
minuteness, our present states of Consciousness, distinguishing and 
defining every ingredient which we find to enter into them — every 
element that we seem to recognise as real, and cannot by merely 
concentrating our attention upon it analyse into anything simpler 
— we reach the ultimate and primary truths, which are the sources 
of all our knowledge, and which cannot be denied or doubted with- 
out denying or doubting the evidence of Consciousness itself — 
that is, the only evidence that there is for anything. I maintain 
this to be a misconception of the conditions imposed on enquirers 
by the difficulties of psychological investigation. To begin the 
enquiry at the point where M. Cousin takes it up is, in fact, to beg 
the question. For he must be aware, if not of the fact, at least of 
the belief of his opponents, that the laws of the mind — the laws 
of Association, according to one class of thinkers, the Categories of 
the Understanding according to another — are capable of creating, 
out of those data of Consciousness which are uncontested, purely 
mental conceptions, which become so identified in thought with all 
our states of Consciousness, that ice seem, and cannot hut seem, to 
receive tliem hy direct intuition. For example, the belief in Matter, 
in the opinion of these thinkers is, or at least may be, thus 
produced : — 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIK W. HAMILTON. 307 

*' ' The proof that any of the alleged Universal Beliefs, or Prin- 
ciples of Common Sense, are affirmations of Consciousness, supposes^ 
two things : that the beliefs exist, and that they cannot possibly 
have been acquired. The first is, in most cases, undisputed ; but 
the second is a subject of enquiry which often taxes the utmost 
resources of psychologists. Locke was therefore right in believing 
that ' the origin of our ideas ' is the main stress of the problem of 
mental science, and the subject which must be first considered in 
forming the theory of the Mind.' " 

This citation from Mr. MilFs book is already almost too 
long, yet we could have wished to prolong it still more, from 
the importance of some of the succeeding paragraphs. It 
presents, in clear discrimination and contrast, two opposite 
points of view according to which the phenomena of mind 
are regarded by different philosophers, and the method of 
studying them determined: tke introspective method, adopted 
by M. Cousin and others — the psychological or analytical 
method, pursued by Locke and by many other eminent men 
since Locke — "the known and approved method of physical 
science, adapted to the necessities of psychology " — (p. 148.) 

There are passages of Sir W. Hamilton's writings in which 
he appears to feel that the introspective method alone is 
insufficient for the interpretation of Consciousness, and that 
the analytical method must be employed to reinforce it. 
But on this as on other points, he is not always consistent 
with himself. For in laying down the principle upon which 
the primary truths of Consciousness, the original data of 
intelligence, are to be ascertained and distinguished from 
generalizations out of experience and custom, he declares 
that the one single and certain mark is Necessity; they 
must be beliefs which we are under the necessity of believing 
— of which we cannot get rid by any mental effort. He 
decides this, of course, for himself, by the introspective 
method alone. He (with M. Cousin and other philosophers 
who take the same view) does not apply the analytical 
method to enquire whether his necessity of belief may not 
be a purely acquired necessity, and nowise congenital. It 

X 2 



308 EEVIEW OF JOHN STUAET MILL. 

is, indeed, remarkable tliat these pliilosopliers do not even 
seek to apply the introspective method as far as that method 
will really go. They are satisfied with introspection of their 
own present minds, without obtaining results of the like 
process, as ajDj^lied to other minds, in different times and 
places. They declare various beliefs to be necessary to the 
human mind universallv, merelv because such is the actual 
fact with their own minds and with those immediately 
around them ; sometimes even in defiance of proof that 
there are (or have been) persons not sharing such beliefs, 
and occasionally even believing the contrary ; therefore, 
when even the introspective method really disallows their 
affirmative instead of sustainins: it. This is, in truth, an 
abuse of the introspective method ; yet, even if that method 
were employed in its fullest extent — if the same incapability 
of believing otherwise could Jbe shown as common to all 
mankind — it mio-ht still be onlv the effect of a strono^ asso- 
ciation. The analytical method must still be called in to 
ascertain whether we are forced to suppose such incapability 
to be an original fact of consciousness, or whether it may 
not have been generated in the mind by circumstances, 
under the natural working of the laws of association. It is 
certain that these laws not only may, but must, give birth 
to artificial inconceivabilities in the mind ; and that some 
of these may be equal in strength to such, if any, as are 
natural. 

" The History of Science," says Mr. Mill, following out the 
same train of reasoning which we read in the third book of his 
System of Logic, " teems with inconceivabilities which Lave been 
conquered ; and with supposed necessary truths, which have fii'st 
ceased to be thought necessary, then to be thought true, and have 
finally come to be deemed impossible." — p. 150. 

jifter various observations, chieflv exhibitino' the rashness 
of many censures bestowed by Sir W. Hamilton on Brown, 
Mr. Mill gives us three valuable chapters (xi., xii., xiii.), 
wherein he analyses the Belief in an External World, the 
Belief in Mind as a separate Substance or Xoumenon, and 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 309 

the Primary Qualities of Matter. To each of these topics 
he applies what he calls the jpsijclwlogical method, as con- 
trasted with the simply introspective method of Sir W. 
Hamilton (the Ego and Non-Ego affirmed to be given 
together in the primary deliverance of Consciousness) and 
so many other philosophers. He proves that these beliefs 
are noway intuitive, but acquired products ; and that the 
known laws of Association are sufficient to explain how they 
are acquired ; especially the Law of Inseparable Associa- 
tion, together with that of Obliviscence — a very useful, dis- 
criminating phrase, which we first find employed in this 
volume (p. 259 et passim). He defines Matter to be a 
^permanent possibilitij of Sensation ; he maintains that this is 
really all which (apart from philosophical theories) mankind 
in general mean by it ; he shows that mere possibilities of 
sensation not only may, but must, according to the known 
Laws of Association, come to present " to our artificialized 
Consciousness " a character of objectivity — (pp. 198, 199). 
The correlating subject, though present in fact and indis- 
pensable, is eliminated out of conscious notice, according to 
the Law of Obliviscence. 

These chapters will well rej ay the most careful perusal. 
We can only find room for one passage (pp. 214, 215) : — 

" Throughout the whole of our sensitive life, except its first 
beginnings, we unquestionably refer our sensations to a me and a 
not-me. As soon as I have formed, on the one hand, the notion of 
Permanent Possibilities of Sensation, and on the other, of that con- 
tinued series of feelings which I call my life — both these notions 
are, by an irresistible association, recalled by every sensation I have. 
They represent two things, with both of which the sensation of the 
moment, be it what it may, stands in relation ; and I cannot be 
conscious of the sensation without being conscious of it, as related 
to these two things. They Lave accordingly received relative names, 
expressive of the double relation in question. The thread of con- 
sciousness which I apprehend the relation as a part of, is called the 
Subject ; the group of Permanent Possibilities of Sensation to which 
I refer it, and which is partially realised and actualised in it, is 
called the Object of the sensation. The sensation itself ought to 



310 REVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL 

have a correlative name, or rather ought to have two such names — 
one denoting the sensation as opposed to its Subject, the other de- 
noting it as opposed to its Object ; but it is a remarkable fact that 
this necessity has not been felt, and that the need of a correlative 
name to every relative one has been considered to be satisfied by 
the terms Object and Subject themselves. It is true that these two 
are related to one another, but only through the sensation. We 
have no conception of either Subject or Object, either Mind or 
Matter, except as something to which we refer our sensations, and 
whatever other feelings we are conscious of. The very existence of 
them both, so far as cognisable by us, consists only in the relation they 
respectively bear to our states of feeling. Their relation to each other 
is only the relation between those two relations. The immediate 
correlatives are, not the pair. Object, Subject, but the two pairs, 
Object, Sensation objectively considered — Subject, Sensation subjec- 
tively considered. The reason why this is overlooked might easily 
be shewn, and would fui*nish a good illustration of that important 
part of the Laws of Association, w^hich may be termed the Laws 
of Obliviscence.' ' 

This chapter, on the Primary Qualities of Matter, con- 
troverts the opinion of Sir W. Hamilton, that extension, as 
consisting of coexistent partes extra partes, is immediately 
and necessarily apprehended by our consciousness. It cites, 
as well as confirms, the copions proof given by Professor 
Bain (in his work on the Senses and the Intellect) that our 
conception of extension is derived from our muscular sensi- 
bility : that our sensation of muscular motion unimpeded 
constitutes our notion of empty space, as our sensation of 
muscidar motion impeded constitutes that of filled space: 
that our conception of extension, as an aggregate of co- 
existent parts, arises from the sense of sight, which com- 
prehends a great number of parts in a succession so raipd 
as to be confounded with simultaneity ; and which not only 
becomes the symbol of muscular and tactile succession, but 
even acquires such ascendency as to supersede both of them 
in our consciousness. Confirmation is here given to this 
important doctrine, not merely by observations from Mr. 
Mill himself, but also from the very curious narrative, dis- 
covered and produced by Sir W. Hamilton, out of a work 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 311 

of the German philosopher, Plainer. Plainer instiluted a 
careful examination of a man born blind, and ascertained 
that this man did not conceive extension as an aggregate of 
simultaneous parts, but as a series of sensations experienced 
or to be experienced in succession — (pp. 232, 233). Tlie 
case reported from Plainer both corroborates the theory of 
Professor Bain, and receives its proper interpretation from 
that theory ; while it is altogether adverse to the doctrine 
of Sir W. Hamilton — as is also another case, which he cites 
from Maine de Biran: — 

" It gives a very favourable idea of Sir W. Hamilton's sincerity 
and devotion to truth," remarks Mr. Mill, p. 247, '' that he should 
have drawn from obscurity, and made generally known, two cases 
so unfavourable to his own opinions." 

We think this remark perfectly just ; and we would point 
out besides, in appreciating Sir W. Hamilton's merits, that 
his appetite for facts was useful to philosophy, as well as his 
appetite for speculation. But the person whose usefulness to 
philosophy we prefer to bring into the foreground, is Plainer 
himself. He spent three weeks in patient examination of 
this blind man, and the tenor of his report proves that his 
sagacity in interpreting facts was equal to his patience in 
collecting them. The rarity of all such careful and pre- 
meditated observation of the facts of mind, appears to us one 
main reason why (what Mr. Mill calls) the psychological 
theory finds so little acceptance ; and why those who main- 
tain that what now seems a mental integer was once a mul- 
tiplicity of separate mental fragments, can describe the ante- 
cedent steps of the change only as a latens jorocessus, which 
the reader never fully understands, and often will not admit. 
Every man's mind is gradually built up from infancy to 
maturity ; the process is always going on before our eyes, 
yet the stages of it — especially the earliest stages, the most 
pregnant with instruction — are never studied and put on 
record by observers trained in inductive logic knowing 
beforehand what they ought to look for as the sine qua non 



312 KEYIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL 

for proving or disproving any proposed theory. Such cases 
as that cited by Platner — cases of one marked congenital 
defect of sense, enabling us to apply the Method of Difference 
— are always within reach ; but few Platners are found to 
scrutinise and record them. Historians of science describe 
to us the laborious and multiplied observations, and the 
elaborate precautions for ensuring accuracy of observation, 
which recent chemical and physical enquirers have found 
indispensable for the establishing of their results. We 
cannot, therefore, be surprised that mental philosophers, 
dealing with facts even more obscure, and careless about 
enlarging, varying, authenticating their records of particular 
facts, should have had little success in establishing any 
results at all. 

But if even those, who adopt the psychological theory, 
have been remiss in the observation of particular mental 
facts, those who deny the theory have been far more than 
remiss ; they have been blind to obvious facts contradicting 
the principles which they lay down. Mr. Mill, in chap, xiv., 
deals with this denial, common to Mr. Mansel with Sir W. 
Hamilton. That philosophers so eminent as both of them 
should declare confidently — " what I cannot but think, must 
be a priori^ or original to thought ; it cannot be engendered 
by experience upon custom " (p. 264) — appears to us as 
extraordinary as it does to Mr. Mill. Though no one ever 
surpassed Sir W. Hamilton in large acquaintance with the 
actual diversities of human belief, and human incapacities of 
believing — yet he never seems to have thought of bringing 
this acquaintance into account, when he assured the students 
in his lecture-room that custom, experience, indissoluble asso- 
ciation, were altogether insufficient to engender a felt neces- 
sity of believing. Such forgetfulness of w^ell-known mental 
facts cannot be reproached to the advocates of the psycho- 
logical theory. 

In chap. XV., Mr. Mill examines Sir W. Hamilton's doctrine 
on unconscious mental modifications. He points out the 
confused manner in w^hich Sir W. Hamilton has conceived 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 313 

mental latency, as well as the inconclusive character of the 
reasoning whereby he refutes the following doctrine of 
Dugald Stewart — That in the most rapid trains of associa- 
tion, each separate item must have been successively present 
to consciousness, though for a time too short to leave any 
memory. Sir W. Hamilton thinks that the separate items 
mh,y pass, and often do pass, unconsciously ; which opinion 
Mr. Mill also, though not approving his reasons, is inclined 
to adopt, 

*' I am myself inclined (p. 285) to admit unconscious mental 
modifications, in the only sense in which I can attach any very 
distinct meaning to them, namely, unconscious modifications of the 
nerves. It may well be believed that the apparently suppressed 
links in a chain of association, those which Sir W. Hamilton con- 
siders as latent, really are so : that they are not even momentarily 
felt, the chain of causation being continued only physically — by 
one organic state of the nerves succeeding another so rapidly 
that the state of mental consciousness appropriate to each is not 
produced." 

Mr. Mill gives various illustrations in support of this 
doctrine. He at the same time calls attention to a valuable 
lecture of Sir W. Hamilton's, the thirty-second lecture on 
Metaphysics ; especially to the instructive citation from 
Cardaillac contained therein, noting the important fact, 
which descriptions of the Law of Association often keep out 
of sight — that the suggestive agency of Association is carried 
on, not by single antecedents raising up single consequents, 
but by a mass of antecedents raising up simultaneously a 
mass of consequents, among which attention is very unequally 
distributed. 

We shall say little upon Mr. Mill's remarks on Sir W. 
Hamilton's Theory of Causation — (chap. xvi.). This theory 
appears to Mr. Mill absurd ; while the theory of Mr. Mill 
(continued from Hume, Brown, and James Mill) on the same 
subject appears to Sir W. Hamilton insufficient and unsatis- 
factory — " professing to explain the phenomenon of causality, 
but previously to explanation, evacuating the phenomenon 



314 REVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL 

of all that desiderates explanation" — (p. 295). For our- 
selves, we embrace the theory of Mr. Mill : * yet we are 
aware that the remark just cited from Sir W. Hamilton re- 
presents the dissatisfaction entertained towards it by many 
objectors. The unscientific and antiscientific yearnings pre- 
valent among mankind lead them to put questions which 
no sound theory of Causation will answer ; and they 
are ready to visit and trust any oracle which professes 
to deliver a confident affirmative solution of such ques- 
tions. Among all the terms employed by metaphysicians, 



* At the same time we cannot go along with Mr. Mill in the 
following affirmation (p. 201) : — 

" This natural probability is converted into certainty when we 
take into consideration that universal law of our experience which 
is termed the Law of Causation, and which makes us unable to 
conceive the beginning of anything ivithout an antecedent condition 



or cause, ^' 



Such " inability to conceive " appears to us not in correspondence 
with facts. First, it cannot be properly either affirmed or denied, 
until agreement is obtained what the word cause means. If 
three persons, A, B, and C, agree in affirming it — A adopting the 
meaning of Aristotle, B that of Sir William Hamilton, and that 
of Mr. Mill — the agreement is purely verbal ; or rather, all three 
concur in having a mental exigency pressing for satisfaction, but 
differ as to the hypothesis which satisfies it. 

Next, if we reason upon Mr. Mill's theory as to Cause, certainly 
those who deny his theory can have no difficulty in conceiving 
events without any cause (in that sense) ; nor have those who adopt 
his theory any greater difficulty. These last believe that there are, 
throughout, constant and uniform conditions on which the occur- 
rence of every event depends ; but they can perfectly conceive events 
as occurring without any such uniform sequence. In truth, the 
belief in such causation, as pervading all nature, is an acquired 
result of scientific training. The greater part of mankind believe 
that some events occur in regular, others in irregular, succession. 
Moreover, a full half of the metaphysical world espouse the doctrine 
of free-will, and consider that all volitions occur without any cause 
at all. 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF Sill W. HAMILTON. 315 

none is used in a greater variety of meanings than the term 
Cause. 

In Mr. Mill's next chapter (xvi.), he comments on Sir W. 
Hamilton's doctrine of Concepts or General Notions. There 
are portions of this chapter with which we agree less than 
with most other parts of the volume ; especially with his 
marked hostility to the term Concept, and the reasons given 
for it ; which reasons appear to us not very consistent with 
what he has himself said in the ' System of Logic/ Book 
IV. ch. ii. § 1-3. The term Concept has no necessary con- 
nexion with the theory called Conceptualism. It is equally 
available to designate the idea called up by a general name, 
as understood either by Mr. Bailey or by James Mill. We 
think it useful as an equivalent to the German word Begriff, 
wiiich sense Sir W. Hamilton has in view when he introduces 
it, though he does not always adhere to his profession. And 
when Mr. Mill says (p. 331) — 

" I consider it nothing less than a misfortune, that the words 
Concept, General Notion, or any other phrase to express the sup- 
posed mental modification corresponding to a general name, should 
ever have been invented," 

we dissent from his opinion. To talk of 'Hhe Concept of an 
individual," however, as Mr. Mansel does (pp. 338, 339), is 
improper and inconsistent with the purpose for which the 
name is given. 

We are more fully in harmony with Mr. Mill in his tw^o 
next chapters (xviii. et seq.) on Judgment and Eeasoning ; 
which are among the best chapters in the volume. He there 
combats and overthrows the theory of Reasoning laid down 
by Sir W. Hamilton ; but we doubt the propriety of his 
calling this ''the Conceptualist theory" (pp. 367, 368): 
since it has nothing to do with Conceptualism, in the special 
sense of antithesis to Realism and Nominalism, — but is, in 
fact, the theory of the Syllogism as given in the Analytics 
of Aristotle, and generally admitted since. Not merely 
Conceptualists, but (to use Mr Mill's own language, p. 366) 



316 REVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL 

" nearly all the writers on logic, taught a theory of the 
science too small and narrow to contain their o^vn facts." 
Such, indeed, was the theory constantly taught until the 
publication of Mr. Mill's ' System of Logic ; ' the first two 
books of which corrected it, by arguments which are re- 
inforced and amplified in these two chapters on Judgment 
and Reasoning, as well as in the two chapters next following 
— chaps. XX. and xxi. — (" Is Logic the Science of the Forms 
of Thought— On the Fundamental Laws of Thought"). The 
contrast which is there presented, in many different ways, 
between the limited theory of logic taught by Sir W. 
Hamilton and Mr. Mansel, and the enlarged theory of Mr. 
Mill, is instructive in a high degree. We consider Mr. 
Mill as the real preserver of all that is valuable in Formal 
Logic from the unfortunate consequences of an erroneous 
estimate, brought upon it through the exaggerated preten- 
sions of logicians. When Sir W. Hamilton contrasts it 
pointedly with physical science (of which he talks with a 
sort of supercilious condescension, in one of the worst passages 
of his writings, p. 401) — when all its apparent fruits were 
produced in the shape of ingenious but barren verbal techni- 
calities — what hope could be entertained that Formal Logic 
could hold its ground in the estimation of the recent gene- 
ration of scientific men ? Mr. Mill has divested it of that 
assumed demonstrative authority which Bacon called " re- 
gere res per syllogismum," but he has at the same time 
given to it a firm root amidst the generalities of objective 
science. He has shown that in the great problem of Evidence 
or Proof, the Laws of Formal Logic, though bearing only 
on one part of the entire procedure, yet bear upon one essen- 
tial part, proper to be studied separately : and that the 
maintenance of consistency between our affirmations (which 
is the only special province of Formal Logic) has great 
importance and value as a part of the process necessary for 
ascertaining and vindicating their truth, or exposing their 
character when false or uncertified — but no importance and 
value except as a part of that larger exigency. 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 317 

While Mr. Mill was amending the Syllogistic theory so 
as to ensure for Formal Logic its legitimate place among 
the essentials of scientific procedure, Sir W. Hamilton was 
at the same time enlarging it on its technical side, in two 
modes which are highly esteemed both by himself and by 
others : 1. The recognition of two kinds of Syllogisms ; one 
in Extension, the other in Comprehension ; 2. The doctrine 
of the Quantification of the Predicate. Both these novelties 
are here criticised by Mr. Mill in chapter xxii., which we 
recommend the reader to peruse conjointly with Lectures 15 
and 16 of Sir W. Hamilton on Logic. 

Now whereas the main objection, by which the study of 
the syllogistic logic has been weighed down and discredited 
in modern times, is this, that it encumbers the memory with 
formal distinctions, having no useful application to the real 
process and purposes of reasoning — the procedure of Sir W. 
Hamilton might almost lead us to imagine that he himself 
was trying to aggravate that objection to the uttermost. He 
introduces a variety of new canons (classifying Syllogisms 
as Extensive and Intensive, by a distinction founded on the 
double quantity of notions, in Extension and in Compre- 
hension) which he intimates that all former logicians have 
neglected — while it plainly appears, even on his own show- 
ing, that the difference between syllogisms, in respect to 
these two sorts of quantity, is of no practical value; and 
that " we can always change a categorical syllogism of the 
one quantity into a categorical syllogism of the other by 
reversing the order of the two premises, and by reversing the 
meaning of the copula " (Lect. xvi. p. 296) ; nay, that every 
syllogism is already a syllogism in both quantities (Mill, 
p. 431). Against these useless ceremonial reforms of Sir 
W. Hamilton, we may set the truly philosophical explanation 
here given by Mr. Mill of the meaning of propositions. 

" All judgments (he says, p. 423), except where both the terms 
are proper names, are really judgments in Comprehension ; thougli 
it is customary, and the natural tendency of the mind, to express 
most of them in terms of Extension. In other words, we never 



Q 



18 REVIEW OF JOHX STUAKT MILL 



really predicate anything but attributes ; though, in the usage of 
language, we commonly predicate them by means of words which 
are names of concrete objects, because (p. 426) we have no other 
convenient and compact mode of speaking. Most attributes, and 
nearly all large bundles of attributes, have no names of their own. 
We can only name them by a circumlocution. We are accustomed to 
speak of attributes, not by names given to themselves, but by means 
of the names which they give to the objects they are attributes of." 
" All our ordinary judgments (p. 428) are in Comprehension only ; 
Extension not being thought of. But we may, if we please, make 
the Extension of our general terms an express object of thought. 
When I judge that all oxen ruminate, I have nothing in my 
thoughts but the attributes and their co-existence. But when by 
reflection I perceive what the proposition implies, I remark that 
other things may ruminate besides oxen, and that the unknown 
multitude of things which ruminate form a mass, with which the 
unknown multitude of things having the attributes of oxen is either 
identical or is wholly comprised in it. Which of these two is the 
truth I may not know, and if I did, took no notice of it when I 
assented to the proposition, all oxen ruminate ; but I perceive, on 
consideration, that one or other of them must be true. Though I 
had not this in my mind when I affirmed that all oxen ruminate, 
I can have it now ; I can make the concrete objects denoted by each 
of the two names an object of thought, as a collective though inde- 
finite aggregate ; in other words, I can make the Extension of the 
names (or notions) an object of direct consciousness. When I do 
this, I perceive that this operation introduces no new fact, but is 
only a difterent mode of contemplating the very fact which I had 
previously expressed by the words, all oxen ruminate. The fact is 
the same, but the mode of contemplating it is different. There is 
thus in all Propositions a judgment concerning attributes (called 
by Sir W. Hamilton a Judgment in Comprehension) wliich we make 
as a matter of course ; and a possible judgment in or concerning 
Extension, which we may make, and which will be true if the 
former is true." 

From the lucid explanation here cited (and from a follow- 
ing paragraph too long to transcribe, p. 433), we see that 
there is no real distinction between Judgments in Compre- 
hension and Judgments in Extension ; that the appearance 
of distinction between them arises from the customary mode 



ON THE PFIILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 319 

of enunciation, which custom is here accounted for ; that the 
addition to the theory of the Syllogism, for which Sir W. 
Hamilton takes credit, is .alike troublesome and unprofitable. 
The like may also be said about his other innovation, the 
Quantification of the Predicate. Still more extensive are 
the changes (as stated by himself) wdiich this innovation 
would introduce in the canons of Syllogism. Indeed, 
when we read his language (Appendix to ' Lectures on Logic,' 
pp. 291-297) censuring generally the prior logicians from 
Aristotle downw^ards, and contending that " more than half 
the value of logic had been lost " by their manner of handling 
it — we may appreciate the magnitude of the reform which he 
believed himself to be introducing-. The laro^er the reform, 
the more it behoved him to be sure of the ground on which 
he was proceeding. But on this point we remark a serious 
deficiency. After laying down, with appropriate empliasis, 
the valuable logical postulate, to state explicitly what is 
thought implicitly, on which, Sir W. Hamilton says, 

" Logic ever insists, but which logicians have never fairly 
obeyed — it follows that logically we ought to take into account 
the quantity, always understood in thought , but usually, and for 
manifest reasons, elided in expression, not only of the suhject^ 
but also of the predicate of a judgment." — Discussions on PJiilos., 
p. 614. 

Here Sir W. Hamilton assumes that the quantity of the 
predicate is always understood in thought; and the same 
assumption is often repeated, in the Appendix to his ' Lec- 
tures on Logic,' p. 291 and elsewhere, as it was alike obvious 
and incontestable. Now it is precisely on this point that 
issue is here taken with Sir W. Hamilton. Mr. Mill denies 
altogether (p. 437) that the quantity of the predicate is 
always understood or present in thought, and appeals to 
every reader's consciousness for an answer :— 

" Does he, when he judges that all oxen ruminate, advert even in 
the minutest degree to the question, whether there is anything else 
that ruminates ? Is this consideration at all in his thoughts, any 



320 REVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL 

more tlian any other consideration foreign to tlie immediate subject ? 
One person may know that there are other ruminating animals, 
another may think that there are none, a third may be without any 
opinion on the subject ; but if they all know what is meant by 
ruminating, they all, when they judge that every ox ruminates, 
mean precisely the same thing. The mental process they go through, 
as far as tliat one judgment is concerned, is precisely identical ; 
though some of them may go on farther, and add other judgments 
to it." 

The last sentence cited from Mr. Mill indicates the vice of 
Sir W. Hamilton's proceeding in quantifying the predicate, 
and explains why it was that logicians before him declined 
to do so. Sir W. Hamilton, in this proceeding, insists on 
stating explicitly, not merely all that is thought implicitly, 
but a o^reat deal more : * addino; to it somethinsr else, wdiich 



* Among the various authorities (upon this question of quanti- 
fying the j)redicate) collected by Sir W. Hamilton in the valuable 
Appendix to his Lectures on Logic, we find one (p. 311) which takes 
the same ground of objection as Mr. Mill, in these words : — 
' The cause why the quantitative note is not usually joined with the 
predicate, is, that there would thus be two qucesita at once ; to w^it, 
whether the predicate were affirmed of the subject, and whether it 
were denied of everything beside. For when we say, all man is all 
rational, we judge that all man is rational, and judge like\^ise that 
rational is denied of everything hut man. But these are, in reality, 
two different qucesita ; and therefore it has become usual to state 
them, not in one, but in two several propositions. And this is 
self-evident, seeing that a qucesitum, in itself, asks only, — Does or 
does not this inhere in that 9 and not, Does or does not this inhere in 
that, and at the same time inhere in nothing elsef^ 

The author of this just and sagacious remark — much sm*passing 
what the other writers quoted in the Appendix say — was a Jew 
who died at Perpignan in or near 1370, named Levi Ben Gerson 
or Gersonides. An interesting account of this man, eminent as a 
writer and thinker in his age, will be found in a biogi'aphy by 
Dr. Joel, published at Breslau in 1862, Levi Ben Gerson als Beli- 
gions philosoph. He distinguished himself as a ^Titer on theology, 
philosophy, and astronomy ; he was one of the successors to the free 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 321 

mayy indeed, be thought conjointly, but which more fre- 
quently is not thought at all. He requires us to pack two 
distinct judgments into one and the same proposition: he 
interpolates the meaning of the Propositio Conversa sim- 
jpliciter into the form of the Propositio Oonvertenda (when 
an universal Affirmative), and then claims it as a great 
advantage, that the proposition thus interpolated admits of 
being converted siinpliciter, and not merely jper accidens, 
Mr. Mill is, nevertheless, of opinion (pp. 439-443) that 
though "the quantified syllogism is not a true expression 
of what is in thought, yet writing the predicate with a quan- 
tification may be sometimes a real help to the Art of Logic." 
We see little advantage in providing a new complicated 
' form, for the purpose of expressing in one proposition what 
naturally throws itself into two, and may easily be expressed 
in two. If a man is prepared to give us information on one 
Qusesitum, why should he be constrained to use a mode of 
speech which forces on his attention at the same time a 
second and distinct Quaesitum — so that he must either give 
us information about the two at once, or confess himself 
ignorant respecting the second ? 

The two next chapters of Mr. Mill, noticing some other 
minor peculiarities (all of them unfortunate, and one, p. 447, 
really unaccountable) of Sir W. Hamilton's Formal Logic ; 
and some Fallacious Modes of Thought countenanced by Sir 
W. Hamilton (chs. xxiii., xxiv. — pp. 446, 478), we are com- 
pelled to pass over. We must find space, however, for a few 
words on the Freedom of the Will (ch. xxv.), which (in Mr. 
Mill's language, pp. 488-549), " w^as so fundamental with 
Sir W. Hamilton, that it may be regarded as the central 
idea of his system — ^the determining cause of most of his 
philosophical opinions." Prior to Sir W. Hamilton, we find 



speculative vein of Maimonides, and one of the continuators of the 
Arabic Aristotelian philosophy. He both commented on and com- 
bated the doctrines of Averroes. Dr. Joel thinks that he died earlier 
than 1370. 

Y 



322 EEVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL 

some writers who maintain the doctrine of Free-will, others 
who maintain that of Necessity: each supporting their re- 
spective conclusions by reasons which they deem suflScient. 
Sir W. Hamilton declares that both the one doctrine and the 
other are inconceivable and incomprehensible ; yet that, by 
the law of Excluded Middle, one or other of them must be 
true: and he decides in favour of Free-will, of which he 
believes himself to be distinctly conscious ; moreover, Free- 
Avill is essential (he thinks) to moral responsibility, of which 
also he feels himself conscious. He confesses himself, however? 
unable to explain the possibility of Free-will ; but he main- 
tains that the same may be said about Necessity also. " The 
cliampions of both the two opposite doctrines are at once 
resistless in attack, and impotent in defence " — (Hamilton's 
' Footnotes on Keid,' p. 602). Mr. Mansel also asserts, even 
more confidently than Sir W. Hamilton, that we are directly 
conscious of Free-will — (p. 503). 

Sir W. Hamilton has himself given some of the best 
aro'uments ao:ainst the doctrine of Free-will, in refutation of 
Reid : aro-uments, some of which are here cited bv Mr. Mill 
with praise which they well deserve — (pp. 497, 498). But 
]\Ir. Mill's own reasoning on the same side is of a still higher 
order, enlarging the grounds previously urged in the last 
book of his ^System of Logic' He protests against the 
term Necessity ; and discards the idea of Necessity, if it be 
understood to imply anything more than invariability of 
antecedence and consequence. If it mean tliat, experience 
proves thus much about antecedents in the world of mind, 
as in the world of matter: if it mean more, experience does 
not prove more, either in the world of matter or in the 
world of mind : nor have w^e any grounds for affirming it in 
either — (p. 501). If it were true, therefore, that conscious- 
ness attested Free-will, we should find the testimony of 
consciousness opposed to a full proof from experience and 
induction. But does consciousness really attest what is called 
Free-will ? Mr. Mill analyses the case, and declares in the 
negative. 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 323 

" To be conscious of Free-will, must mean to be conscious, 
before I bave decided, tbat I am able to decide either way ; 
exception may be taken in limine to tbe use of the word conscious^ 
ness in such an application. Consciousness teUs me what I do or 
feel. But what I am able to do, is not a subject of consciousness. 
Consciousness is not prophetic ; we are conscious of what is, not 
of what will or can be. We never know that we are able to do 
a thing, except from having done it, or something similar to it. 
Having acted, we know, as far as that experience reaches, how we 
are able to act; and this knowledge, when it has become familiar, is 
often confounded with, and called by, the name of consciousness. But 
it does not derive any increase of authority from being misnamed : 
its truth is not supreme over, but depends upon, experience. If 
our so-called consciousness is not borne out by experience, it is 
a delusion. It has no title to credence, but as an interpretation 
of experience ; and if it is a false interpretation it must give way." 
—pp. 503, 504. 

After this salutary and much-needed warning against the 
confusion between consciousness as an infallible authority, 
and belief upon experience, of which we are conscious as a 
belief — Mr. Mill proceeds to sift the alleged self-evident 
connexion between Free-will and Accountability. He shows, 
not merely that there is no connexion, but that there is a 
positive repugnance between the two. By Free-will is meant 
that a volition is not determined by motives, but is a spon- 
taneous mental fact, neither having a cause, nor admitting 
of being predicted. Now, the very reason for giving notice 
that we intend to punish certain acts, and for inflicting 
punishment if the acts be committed, is, that we trust in 
the efficacy of the threat and the punishment as deterring 
motives. If the volition of agents be not influenced by 
motives, the whole machinery of law becomes unavailing, 
and punishment a purposeless infliction of pain. In fact, 
itr is on that very ground that the madman is exempted 
from punishment ; his volition being presumed to be not 
capable of being acted upon by the deterring motive of legal 
sanction. The free agent, thus understood, is one who can 
neither feel himself accountable, nor be rendered account- 

Y 2 



324 EEVIEW OF JOHN STUAET MILL 

able, to or by others. It is only the necessary agent (the 
person whose volitions are determined by motives, and, in 
case of conflict, by the strongest desire or the strongest 
apprehension) that can be held really accountable, or can 
feel himself to be so. 

" The true doctrine of the Causation of human actions," says 
Mr. Mill, p. 516, *' maintains, in opposition both to pure and to 
modified Fatalism, that not only our conduct, but our character is 
in part amenable to our will : that we can, by employing the 
proper means, improve our character : and that if our character is 
such that, while it remains what it is, it necessitates us to do wrong — 
it will be just to apply motives which will necessitate us to strive 
for its improvement. We shall not indeed do so unless we desire 
our improvement, and desire it more than we dislike the means 
which must be employed for the purpose." 

It thus appears that of the two propositions, 1, volitions 
are necessary, or depend on causes ; 2, volitions are free, or 
•do not depend on causes — neither the one nor the other is 
inconceivable or incomprehensible, as Sir W. Hamilton sup- 
posed them to be. That the first is true, and the second 
false, we learn by experience, and by that alone ; just as we 
learn the like in regard to the phenomena of the material 
world. Indeed, the fact that human volitions are both pre- 
dictable and modifiable, quite as much as all those physical 
phenomena that depend upon a complication of causes — 
which is only a corollary from what has just been said — is so 
universally recognised and acted upon by all men, that there 
would probably be little difference of opinion about this 
question, if the antithesis were not obscured and mystified 
by the familiar, but equivocal, phrases of Free-will and 
Necessity. 

Passing over chapter xxvii., in which Mr. Mill refutes Sir 
W. Hamilton's opinion that the study of mathematics is 
worthless, or nearly so, as an intellectual discipline — we shall 
now call attention to the concluding remarks which sum up 
the results of the volume. After saying that he " differs from 
almost everything in Sir W. Hamilton's philosophy, on which 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 325 

he particularly valued himself, or which is specially his 
own," Mr. Mill describes Sir W. Hamiliton's general merits 
as follows : — 

" They chiefly consist in his clear and distinct mode of bringing 
before the reader many of the fundamental questions of meta- 
physics : some good specimens of psychological analysis on a small 
scale : and the many detached logical and psychological truths 
which he has separately seized, and which are scattered through 
his writings, mostly applied to resolve some special difficulty, and 
again lost sight of. I can hardly point to anything he has done 
towards helping the more thorough understanding of the greater 
mental phenomena, unless it be his theory of Attention (including 
Abstraction), which seems to me the most perfect we have; but 
the subject, though a highly important, is comparatively a simple 
one." — p. 547. 

Agreeing in this general view of Sir W. Hamilton's merits, 
we should be disposed to describe them in language stronger 
and more emphatic as to degree, than that which has just 
been cited. But what is stated in the pages immediately 
following (pp. 550, 551) — That Sir W. Hamilton's doctrines 
appear to be usually taken up under the stimulus of some 
special dispute and often afterwards forgotten ; That he did 
not think out subjects until they were thoroughly mastered, 
or until consistency was attained between the different views 
which the author took from different points of observation ; 
That, accordingly, his philosophy seems made up of scraps 
from several conflicting metaphysical systems — All this is 
literally and amply borne out by the many inconsistencies 
and contradictions which Mr. Mill has brought to view in the 
preceding chapters. It would appear that the controversial 
disposition was powerful with Sir W. Hamilton, and that a 
present impulse of that sort (as has been said respecting Bayle, 
Burke, and others) not only served to provoke new intellec- 
tual combinations in his mind, but also exercised a Lethaean 
influence in causing obliviscence of the old. But we can 
hardly follow Mr. Mill in ascribing the defect to " excessive 
absorption of time and energy by the study of old writers " 



326 EEVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL 

(p. 551). If this study did no other good, it at least kept 
the memory in exercise. Now, what surprises us most 
in Sir W. Hamilton's inconsistencies, is the amount of self- 
forgetfulness which they imply. 

While the laborious erudition of Sir W. Hamilton cannot 
be fairly regarded as having produced any of his intellectual 
defects, it undoubtedly stamped upon him his special title of 
excellence as a philosopher. This is fully recognised by Mr. 
Mill ; though he treats it as belonging not so much to a 
philosopher as to an historian of philosophy. He concludes 
(pp. 552—554) :— 

" It is much to be regretted that Sir W. Hamilton did not write 
the history of philosophy, instead of choosing, as the dii'ect object 
of his intellectual exertions, philosophy itself. He possessed a 
knowledge of the materials such as no one, probably for many 
generations, will take the trouble of acquiring again. Inde- 
pendently of the great interest and value attaching to a knowledge 
of the historical development of speculation, there is much in the 
old writers on philosophy, even those of the middle ages, really 
worth preserving for its scientific value. But this should be ex- 
tracted, and rendered into the phraseology of modern thought, by 
persons as familiar with that as with the ancient, and possessing a 
command of its language : a combination never yet so perfectly 
realised as in Sir W. Hamilton. This, which no one but himself 
could have done, he has left undone, and has given us instead a con- 
tribution to mental philosophy, which has been more than equalled 
by many not superior to him in powers, and wholly destitute of 
erudition. Of all persons in modern times entitled to the name 
of philosophers, the two, probably, whose reading on the subject 
was the scantiest, in proportion to their intellectual capacity, were 
Archbishop Whately and Dr. Brown. Accordingly they are the 
only two of whom Sir W. Hamilton, though acknowledging their 
abilities, speaks with some tinge of superciliousness. It cannot be 
denied that both Dr. Brown and Whately would have thought 
and written better than they did, if they had been better read in 
the writings of previous thinkers ; but I am not afraid that pos- 
terity will contradict me when I say, that either of them has done 
far greater service to the world in the origination and diffusion of 
important thought than Sir W. Hamilton with all his learning ; 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 327 

because, though indolent readers, they were both of them active 
and fertile thinkers. 

" It is not that Sir W. Hamilton's erudition is not frequently of 
real use to him on particular questions of philosophy. It does him 
one valuable service : it enables him to know all the various opinions 
which can be held on the questions he discusses, and to conceive 
and express them clearly, leaving none of them out. This it does, 
though even this not always ; but it does little else, even of what 
might be expected from erudition when enlightened by philosophy. 
He knew, with extraordinary accuracy, the on of each philosopher's 
opinions, but gave himself little trouble about the Slotu With one 
exception, I find no remark bearing upon that point in any part of 
his writings. I imagine he would have been much at a loss if he 
had been required to draw up a philosophical estimate of the mind 
of any great thinker. He never seems to look at any opinion 
of a philosopher in connection with the same philosopher's other 
opinions. Accordingly he is weak as to the mutual relations of 
philosophical doctrines. One of the most striking examples of this 
inability is in the case of Leibnitz," &c. 

Here we find in a few sentences the conclusion which Mr. 
Mill conceives to be established by his book. We shall state 
how far we are able to concur with it. He has brought the 
matter to a direct issue, by weighing Sir W. Hamilton in 
the balance against two other actual contemporaries ; instead 
of comparing him with some unrealised ideal found only in 
the fancy of critics and reviewers. 

Comparing Sir W. Hamilton with Dr. Brown, we cordially 
subscribe to the opinion of Mr. Mill. We think that Dr. 
Brown has *' done far greater service to the world than Sir 
W. Hamilton, in the origination and diffusion of important 
thought." To speak only of two chief subjects in the field 
of important thought — Causality and the Freedom of the 
Will — we not only adopt the conclusions of Dr. Brown, but 
we admire both his acuteness and his originality in vindi- 
cating and illustrating the first of the two, while we dissent 
entirely from the views of Sir W. Hamilton. This alone 
would be sufficient to make us approve the superiority 
assigned by Mr. Mill to Dr. Brown. We discover no com- 
pensating item to be placed to the credit of Sir W. Hamilton : 



328 REVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL 

for the great doctrine of the Eelativity of Knowledge, which 
is our chief point of philosophical brotherhood with him, was 
maintained by Brown also. 

But in regard to Dr. Whately, our judgment is altogether 
different. We cannot consent to admit him as a superior, 
or even as an equal, to Sir W. Hamilton, " in the origination 
and diffusion of important thought.'^ He did much service 
by reviving an inclination and respect for Logic, and by clear- 
ing up a part of the technical obscurity which surrounded 
it : but we look upon him as an acute and liberal-minded 
English theologian, enlarging usefully, though timidly, the 
intellectual prison in which many orthodox minds are con- 
fined — rather than as a fit aspirant to the cosmopolitan 
honours of philosophy. " An active and fertile thinker," Mr. 
Mill calls Whately; and such he undoubtedly was. But 
such also we consider Sir W. Hamilton to have been, in 
a degree at least equal. If the sentence which we have 
quoted above be intended to deny the predicate, ** active 
and fertile thinker," of Sir W. Hamilton, we cannot acqui- 
esce in it. His intellect appears to us thoroughly active 
and fertile, even when we dissent from his reasonings — nay> 
even in the midst of his inconsistencies, when a new growth 
of opinions is unexpectedly pushed up, on ground which 
we supposed to be already pre-occupied by another both 
older and different. And we find this same judgment 
implied in the discriminating remarks upon his philoso- 
phical procedure made by Mr. Mill himself — (pp. 271, 272). 
For example, respecting Causality and the Freedom of the 
Will, we detect no want of activity and fertility, though 
marked evidence of other defects — especially the uncondi- 
tional surrender of a powerful mind to certain privileged 
inspirations, worshipped as '' necessities of thought." 

While thus declaring how far we concur in the parallel 
here drawn of Sir W. Hamilton with Brown and Whately, 
we must at the same time add that the comparison is. taken 
under circumstances unduly favourable to these two last. 
There has been no exposure of their errors and incon- 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR W. HAMILTON. 329 

sistencies, equal in penetration and completeness to the 
ernsliing volume which Mr. Mill has devoted to Sir W. 
Hamilton. To make the odds fair, he ought to furnish a 
similar systematic examination to Brown and Whately ; 
enabling us to read their works (as we now do those of Sir 
W. Hamilton) with the advantage of his unrivalled micro- 
scope, which detects the minutest breach or incoherence in 
the tissue of reasoning, and of his large command of philo- 
sophical premisses, w^hich brings into full notice what the 
author had overlooked. Thus alone could the competition 
between the three be rendered perfectly fair. 

We regret, as Mr. Mill does, that Sir W. Hamilton did 
not undertake the composition of a history of philosophy. 
Nevertheless we must confess that we should hardly feel 
such regret, if we could see evidence to warrant Mr. Mill's 
judgment (p. 554) that Sir W. Hamilton was 'indifferent 
to the Slotl of a man's opinions, and that he was incompetent 
to draw up an estimate of the opinions of any great thinker," 
&c. Such incompetence, if proved to be frequent and con- 
siderable, would deprive an author of all chance of success in 
writing a history of philosophy. But the study of Sir W. 
Hamilton's works does not prove it to us, though Mr. Mill 
has convicted him of an erroneous estimate of Leibnitz. 
We say frequent and considerable, because no historian of 
philosophy is exempt from the defect more or less ; or rather 
(to pass out of the self-confidence of the Absolute into the 
modesty of the Relative) we seldom find any historian whose 
estimate of great philosophical thinkers does not often differ 
from our own. Hence we are glad when ample and original 
extracts are produced, enabling us to test the historian, and 
judge for ourselves — a practice which Sir W. Hamilton would 
have required no stimulus to enforce upon him. There 
ought, indeed, to be various histories of philosophy, com- 
posed from different points of view ; for the ablest historian 
cannot get clear of a certain exclusiveness belonging to 
himself. But so far as we can conjecture what Sir W. 
Hamilton ivoiild or could have done, we think that a history 



330 EEVIEW OF JOHN STUART MILL. 

of philosophy composed by him would have surpassed any 
work of the kind in our language. 

We trust that Sir W. Hamilton's works will long continue 
to be read, along with Mr. Mill's examination of them ; and 
we should be glad if the works of other philosophers could 
be read along with a comment of equal acuteness and 
impartiality. Any point of view which could command the 
adherence of such a mind as Sir W. Hamilton's, deserves to 
be fully considered. Moreover, the living force of philosophy, 
as directress of human intelligence, depends upon keeping up 
in each of her devotees a full mastery of many divergent 
and opposite veins of reasoning — a knowledge, negative and 
afSrmative, of the full case of opponents as well as of his 
own. 

It is to Philosophy alone that our allegiance is sworn, and 
while we concur mostly with Mr. Mill's opinions, we number 
both him and Sir W. Hamilton as a noble pair of brethren, 
serving alike in her train. 

Amicus Hamilton ; magis amicus Mill; arnica ante omnes 
Philosojjhia, 



PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. 



(From the Author's MSS.) 



PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. 



Under the date 1822, Mrs. Grote has preserved a fasciculus 
of very interesting essays on Metaphysics, Mr. Grote's 
earliest productions in that walk. They prove both the 
extent of his reading, and the subtlety and the depth of his 
own reflections. 

The longest and best essay is entitled '' Object and Extent 
of Metaphysics." It not only raises the most difficult 
questions in the philosophy of mind, but shows that he had 
already made up his mind, and taken his side, on the con- 
troversies that divide the schools. Five vears before, he 
represented himself as half-convinced by Berkeley ; he is 
now a Berkleian, and something more. 

He comes at once to the point — What is the meaning of 
^External body'? and answers it according to Berkeley, 
although with a more advanced psychology. He expands 
in his own way the Berkleian motto — esse est percijoi — and 
does not shirk any of the difficulties. The following extracts 
are a specimen : — 

When the word Carlton-house is pronounced, a certain set 
of visible and tangible sensations is re-kindled in my mind — 
that is, I fancy myself again seeing or touching Carlton- 
house. When the word is pronounced, I myself supply un- 
consciously the act of seeing or touching, by virtue of which 
such a sound excites the idea habitually associated with it. 
And when I sav, '^ Carlton-house exists " — the full and 
accurate description of my state of mind is, '' I fancy that 



334 papi;rs on philosophy. 

I see Carlton-house — I rememher to have lately seen it — or I 
now see it, &cr 

But it will doubtless be asked, " Does not Carlton-house 
exist when I am not thinking of it? Would it not exist 
though I were annihilated ?" 

This question, if strictly analysed, will appear to be an 
utter sophism — involving conditions which preclude the 
possibility of replying to it either in the affirmative or 
negative. How can I frame any kind of affirmation or 
denial on a subject, on which I am interdicted from employ- 
ing my thoughts ? I am forbidden to think upon Carlton- 
house — yet I am desired, notwithstanding, to say whether 
it exists or not. I am to suppose my mind and powers of 
judging annihilated — yet I am required to deliver a judg- 
ment on a subject placed before me. Now surely when 
these self-contradicting conditions are exposed, this question, 
which is usually the experimentum crucis of the Materialist, 
shrinks into an unmeaning puzzle. In order to reply to a 
question regarding Carlton-house, it is obvious that I must 
employ my thoughts about it. My decision, therefore, 
whether affirmative or negative, implies uniformly two 
things — first, that my mind is in action, i.e., not annihilated, 
secondly, that it is employed upon that particular subject 
and upon nothing else. In other words, any conceivable 
answer which I may return must imply two conditions the 
direct reverse of that which the question demands. 

If indeed I am asked, " whether Carlton-house cannot 
exist exce]^t when I am looMng at it,^^ I readily answer, that it 
may exist just as much when I do not see it, as when I do. 
But when I say this, the whole amount of my affirmation is, 
that I remember distinctly to have seen it, and expect fully 
that I may see it again — and that without at present looking 
upon it. The states of mind which I call remembrance 
and expectation may doubtless occur separately from what 
is usually termed perception, and may kindle a lively belief 
in the existence of the thing so remembered and expected. 



EXTEENAL PEECEPTION. 335 

But this feeling of remembrance, expectation, and belief, is 
precisely as strong in the case of other sensations, when 
constant, as it is in those of sight and touch. My remem- 
brance and belief that the noise of a cataract, which I have 
visited formerly, now exists, is just as strong as my remem- 
brance and belief that the water or the rocks exist. I have as 
full a conviction that I may again hear the one, as that I 
may again see the other. Should it be asked, whether there 
is any noise when I am not near to hear it, I should answer, 
that there unquestionably was. It matters not whether I 
actually hear it or not. I remember to have heard it and 
expect to hear it again. There is not a shade of difference 
in my feelings with regard to the sound, and with regard to 
the rocks. 

I have already remarked that partly from their perma- 
nence, partly from their urgency, the visual and tactile 
sensations come to exercise prodigious ascendency over our 
minds. All our other states of mind are viewed with refer- 
ence to these others, as antecedents or concomitants or 
consequents, and the visual and tactile sensations thus 
appropriate and enslave all the rest. But these two pre- 
dominant classes of sensations acquire, as I have endeavoured 
to explain, a seeming independence of our mental modifi- 
cations, and appear to have an existence distinct from and 
without our minds. Hence, since a powerful interest con- 
tinually impels us to consider all our sensations with refer- 
ence to the visual and tactile, and since these appear to 
exist distinct from the mind — we contract an habitual desire 
of tracing our states of mind up to something distinct from 
and independent of ourselves. We search about for an 
external something to which we may attribute any mental 
affection of which we are conscious ; and when the latter 
has once been fastened and domiciliated with any external 
something, the process of the mind appears to be performed, 
its dissatisfaction is appeased, and it is set at rest. 

The early growth of this tendency is of infinite and melan- 



336 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. 

choly importance. It thrusts itself upon us upon all occa- 
sions, as an operation of primary necessity ; it perverts our 
views of what is desirable or practicable to know, and 
distorts altogether the application of the power of thought ; 
and it casts so deep a mist over all the proceedings of the 
understanding, as no subsequent reflexion can entirely 
dissipate. When a state of mind occurs w^hich is not fami- 
liar to us, and which we desire to explain, we are drawn 
away from that path of observation and comparison which 
alone can conduct us to a solid result ; we do not think of 
comparing the different trains of which it forms a member, 
in order to separate its casual from its constant companions. 
We instantly look for an external something on which we 
may hitch it, and if none such presents itself, we slide easily 
into the process of creation, and fasten that which is to be 
accounted for upon some fictitious and imaginary entity. 
Of these numberless mistakes the source is to be sought iu 
that early habit which bestows upon the visual and tactile 
sensations so complete an ascendency over the mind, and 
which leads us to father all our other mental modifications 
upon them alone. 

I cannot depart from this topic without offering a few 
remarks on the controversy between Berkeley and Eeid, 
with regard to which much misconception appears to have 
arisen. The merits of the latter have been blazoned forth, 
and his refutation paraded far and wide as victorious and 
irresistible, by his disciple and expositor, Mr. Stewart, 
whereas the treatise of the former has been left an orphan 
(to use a beautiful expression of Plato) and defenceless, and 
seems to have met with few who could comprehend its 
bearings, or disengage the truth w^hich its author so suc- 
cessfully struck out, from the errors which particular pre- 
judices led him to array by its side. Few treatises ever 
stood more in need of such a commentator ; for the mixture 
which it presents is indeed singular. It is remarkable, that 
both Berkeley and Keid (as each has left upon record) were 



EXTERNAL PERCEPTION. 337 

led into their different and contradictory trains of thought by 
the very same motive — an aversion to Atheism, and a zeal 
for the maintenance of religious belief. 

To place religion on a firm and unassailable foundation, 
the Bishop thought it requisite to refute the supposition that 
there was any unthinking substance existing without the 
perceiving mind, and to prove that only spiritual or thinking 
substances could be thus independently existent. While, in 
pursuance of these views, he adheres to the former track, 
his reasonings are strikingly ingenious and original. He 
insists forcibly on the impossibility of seeing anything 
unseen, hearing anything unheard, conceiving anything un- 
conceived, &c., which is what is meant by affirming that the 
objects of sight, of touch, of conception, or of any other mental 
feeling whatever, exist independent of the mind. I shall 
not dwell any longer upon this part of his writings, because 
I have endeavoured to enforce the same line of argument in 
various parts of these Essays, and because perhaps the very 
best statement of the doctrine, which Berkeley*s book affords, 
is a passage already cited. 

But when, in furtherance of his original plan, the Bishop 
sought to evade the application of these reasonings to the 
case of Spirit, it is melancholy to observe the confusion 
which beo:ins to overcloud his mind, and the unreal dis- 
tinctions which appear to satisfy his once piercing and 
irresistible scrutiny. "A spirit (said he) cannot be known 
by way of idea ; it is a simple, undivided, active Being, per- 
cipient of ideas, but not itself perceived, like an Idea. We 
know a Spirit immediately by way of notion. Now though 
it is impossible that an Idea, whose esse is pereipi, should 
exist without being perceived ; yet it is not impossible that 
a Spirit, whose esse is joercipere, should exist without being 
perceived." 

Such was the distinction by which Berkeley strove to 
shelter Spirit from the arguments by which he had attacked 
matter. A very cursory inspection will discover its in- 
sufficiency. For either the word Spirit means nothing, or 

• z 



338 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. 

else it means something conceived, believed, imagined, sup- 
posed, &c., call the state of mind what you will. To say, 
that my ideas may be perceived by another percipient, is 
merely to say, that I may conceive, or believe, or know, or 
suppose, &c., that they are perceived by another percipient. 
Another percipient is, in other words, something known or 
conceived as perceiving. And it is impossible that anything 
known or conceived can have an existence independent of 
the knowing or conceiving mind. At any rate, it makes 
no difference whether the thino* known be thinkino; or un- 
thinking. If the independent existence of the latter is 
impossible, that of the former is equally so ; if that of the 
former be possible, so is that of the latter. 

Now as this line of distinction could not be maintained, it 
was obvious that Berkelev's doctrine was self-contradictorv. 
The question was, which half of it should destroy the 
other. 

Viewing the controversy simply as it stood between Eeid 
and Berkeley, it must be owned that the inconsistency, 
which so glaringly pervades the doctrine of the latter, placed 
his adversary upon a ground of attack singularly advan- 
tageous. The admissions, in which the Bishop had so 
liberally indulged towards Spirit, were perfectly sufficient 
to vindicate the existence of Matter, if they conld be shewn 
to apply equally to it — that is, if the distinction which 
Berkelev had drawn between the two could be removed. 
But this distinction consisted in the hypothesis, that we 
knew matter by way of ideas, or of an intervening something 
immediately perceived by the mind — while we knew sjDirit 
immediately, or without any such intervention. This was 
the ideal theorv, and Dr. Eeid directed the whole force of 
his reasonings against it. " We are admitted (said he) to 
know Spirit immediately ; what reason is there for supposing 
that we know Matter in anv other way ? Whv should not 
our apprehension of the one be as direct and immediate as 
that of the other? Can any evidence be adduced of the 
intervention of an idea, in the case of material substance ?" 



EXTEKNAL PEECEPTION. 339 

It was perfectly true that no such evidence could be 
adduced. And as far as regards Berkeley, or any one who 
coincides with Berkeley's admissions concerning Spirit, I 
think the arguments of Eeid are decisive and invincible. 
But his advantage over the Bishop merely arose from his 
consistency in vindicating two errors, which must stand or 
fall together ; while his adversary, in dismissing one, clung 
with increased vehemence and pertinacity to the other. 
By the removal, therefore, of the ideal theory, it must 
be allowed that the repugnance and self-contradiction of 
Berkeley's system was demonstrated, and the controversy 
decided in favour of Eeid. 

Not so the controversy about the independent existence 
of material substance. The real value of Berkeley's argu- 
ments on the negative side of this question is not at all 
impaired, because they happened in his mind to be closely 
knit together with certain errors, which rendered it in- 
consistent in him to maintain them. And the actual force 
of these arguments is so far from depending on the ideal 
theory (on the destruction of which Mr. Stewart rests the 
celebrity of Eeid), that they must, if received, exclude and 
nullify that theory altogether. For the ideal theory is 
nothing but a supposition framed to explain the mode in 
which we perceive external objects. Now if there exist no 
objects independent of the mind, the ideal theory becomes 
altogether useless and unmeaning, inasmuch as the difficulty, 
which it was destined to explain, is terminated. When I 
affirm that I am conscious of nothing but my own states of 
mind or mental modifications — whether called sensations, 
conceptions, acts of belief, or by any other name, this general 
statement of fact is certainly no theory at all ; but least of 
all is it the ideal theory, which is of a nature and purpose 
altogether inconsistent with this statement of fact. The 
truth is, that if the ideal theory is an unsupported hypo- 
thesis, so also is the supposition of external independent 
objects. If the ideas, of which I am conscious, are really 
nothing, distinct from and independent of the. conscious 

z 2 



340 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. 

mind — then neither are the external objects, which I per- 
ceive, anything distinct from and independent of the 
perceiving mind. To say that there may exist objects 
without my mind, distinct from its perceptions ; but that 
there cannot possibly exist any objects within my mind, 
distinct from its consciousness, is an assumption destitute of 
all evidence, and virtually predetermining the very question 
in disj)ute, by introducing the expressions, icitliout and 
within the mind ; a phraseology altogetlier unmeaning, if the 
hypothesis of external objects be rejected. 

[In 1860, there occurred an interesting correspondence on 
the same subject, which is here reproduced in full. The 
ostensible start was from the conchiding chapter of Pro- 
fessor Bain's work, ^The Emotions and the Will,' where a 
criticism was made on Ferrier's * Institutes,' from the point 
of view of the Relativity of all Knowledge ; the Subject-and- 
Object Eelativity being only one example, although posses- 
sing an altogether exceptional importance. In point of fact, 
however, Mr. Grote had of his own motion been meditating 
intently on the correlation of the Subject and Object in per- 
ception, and took this opportunity to put down his thoughts 
in writing.] 



SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 

There are portions of your section on this subject which 
do not quite satisfy me. I coincide more fully with your 
treatment of the same matter (or the branch of the same 
matter which relates to the material world), in your first 
volume [^ The Senses and the Intellect '], pp. 366-376. 

The relativeness of Subject to Object, as I conceive it, 
stands singly and by itself, apart from all relativeness 
between two or more diverse objects of cognition. Whether 
cognition be only possible under the assumption of a known 
contrast between two different objects, as you imagine — or 



SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 341 

whether it be also possible with only one object, not con- 
sciously contrasted with any foil, as I incline to believe — in 
either case the cognizant subject is the same, equally present 
and incorporated in the fact of cognition. An act of cog- 
nition has no meaning without a cognizing subject and a 
cognitum object : the former always the same, the latter 
variable : both being opposite points of view (or poles) ol 
the same indivisible fact of mind. If, in addition to this, it 
be true that there must be two distinct objects, known in 
antithesis to each other by the cognizant subject, let the 
position be proved : but it seems to me distinct from, and 
independent of, the position above laid down respecting 
subject and object. The two positions ought to be affirmed 
and reasoned upon apart from each other : not thrown 
together under one general head. You say truly (vol. i. 
p. 376) that to speak of a cognitum apart from a cognoscens 
is " self-contradiction :" but it is surely no self-contradiction 
(whether exact or not) to say that we can know red without 
green, or light without darkness. 

You seem to consider the antithesis of subject and object, 
as coinciding with that of ideal and real — mind and matter — 
internal and external. I cannot but think that subject and 
object is more general and fundamental than this. The dis- 
tinction Subject — Object belongs to the ideal world, as well 
as to the sensational. John Mill says in his ^ Logic ' (Book i. 
c. iii. p. 55) — " Even imaginary objects, which are said to 
exist only in our ideas, are to be distinguished from our ideas 
of them. The hobgoblin which never existed is not the same 
thing with my idea of a hobgoblin. They are all, not thoughts, 
but objects of thought, though all the objects are alike non- 
existent." Plato's archetypal Ideas were Objects, though 
neither material nor extended. 

The act of Conception, as well as the act of Perception, is 
in itself indivisible : but both the one and the other may be 
looked at either in the subjective or in the objective point 
of view. The Subject is that which either one or the other 
has in common with all the other acts of our mind or 



342 PAPEES ON PHILOSOPHY, 

Gonsciousness — the indeterminate Ego, The Object is that 
which either one or the other has either peculiar to itself, or 
common only to a select fraction of our acts of consciousness: 
it is the varying Ego, or the principle of variation and 
specialisation in Ego. We cannot properly speak of it as 
iVbii-Ego: it involves, not a negation, but a simple modifi- 
cation and determination, of the Subject. The antithesis of 
Ego and Non-Ego, which some writers adopt, involves an 
illusion : the real antithesis is between Eg^o determinate and 
Ego indeterminate: the determinate Ego being the com- 
plete mental fact, from which the indeterminate Ego is the 
highest abstraction. 

There seem to be various sources of confusion in reference 
to this antithesis of Subject — Object. 

1. Our own bodies. I apprehend that the earliest con- 
ception of Subject, that which prevails in unreflecting minds, 
is the distinction between each man's body and matter 
external to his body. He considers his body to be Subject — 
that is, Mmself, What is external to his body is Object, or 
not himself. This distinction gets early and powerful hold 
upon the mind. But it is evidently an objective distraction, 
between two different objects : for each man's body is object 
to himself as Subject : it is seen and felt, and the boundary 
between it and what is beyond it can be traced by sensation 
and movement. The body partakes of the nature both of 
Subject and Object. Considered as object, the distinction 
between our body and matter extraneous to our body, is not 
only clear and marked but highly important : it is the most 
familiar and indispensable of all distinctions. Whait is ex- 
traneous to our own body, is extraneous to ourselves as 
Subject : for the Subject is identical with the body, or at 
least co-extensive with it. What is really an antithesis 
between two objects, is converted into antithesis or divorce 
between object and subject. 

2. The second source of confusion is, that w^e look back 
upon our own ^ast sensations, perceptions, and mental acts 
generally. When I recollect or conceive an object which I 



SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 343 

saw or touched an hour ago, I know that I am not now 
seeing or touching it. My jpercipient Subject forms no 
part of the recollection: and it appears as if that which 
I recollect or conceive was Object pure and simple, without 
a Subject. But there is here an illusion : because my 
Subject, though not interfering as percipient, interferes as 
reminiscent or eoncipient, and forms an equally essential part 
of the real fact. To our memory, or conception, is present 
only the objective point of view of the past sensation; but 
the memory or conception itself forms the subjective to 
correlate with it. 

3. A third source of confusion relates to the distinction 
between myself and other subjects. I believe that other 
subjects are often affected in the same manner as I am — 
often not so. But in making this comparison, it is plain 
that I regard my own subject as an object. Other persons 
can be only objects to me : and when I compare myself to 
them, I become an ohject to myself : that is my past sensa- 
tions and mental acts pass under my review, or become 
objects to my reminiscent or reflecting subject. I, the 
Subject, am in this way, as it were, counted twice over: 
once as reflecting, once again as object reflected upon ; and 
it is in the latter capacity alone that I am compared with 
other subjects. The distinction, or resemblance, which I 
note between my sensations and those of other men, is in 
reality an objective distinction, noted by myself as com- 
jparing subject between myself and others as compared objects. 
But the fact that I am the comparing subject passes un- 
noticed and out of sight : all that is usually noticed is, the 
two compared objects, myself and others. It is forgotten 
that this comparison cannot be made without myself as 
subject to make it. The subject, as such, is overlooked : it 
cannot come into separate consciousness : it can only be 
understood by comparing together some or all of our 
past mental acts and attending to that which they all 
have in common. But in this process, my past self 
becomes an Object, to my present self as Subject: my 



344 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. 

present self being of necessity implied, but not consciously 
present. 

James Mill (' Analysis', vol. i. pp. 244, 245, 249) adverts to 
this distinction between ;past self and p^eseiit self. He seems 
liowever to think that present selfcsiJi come into separate 
consciousness as well as past self. If he means this, I cannot 
agree with him. I think that self only comes into conscious- 
ness as an ohject — 2^^^^ ^^ future self: as subject, or present 
self it is implied, but never revealed or discernible. 

The distinction between past self or object, and present 
seK, or subject, enables us to criticise Ferrier's position, that 
"every cognition must involve a cognition of self." If he 
had said, that " every cognition must involve self as the 
cognizant," I think he would have been perfectly correct. 
The self, present self or subject, is constant and indispensable 
as the cognoscens, but cannot become the cognitum. The 
2)resent self forms one constant and unalterable pole of the 
indivisible act of cognition. Our past self on the contrary, 
belongs to the other or objective pole. But -even in this 
sense of the objective self, Ferrier's position is not exact. 
It is not true that every cognition must involve a cognition 
of self. In many cognitions, the objective self is not at all 
included. I know many things, which I do not at all recol- 
lect to have seen, or heard, or discovered, or reasoned out, 
by my past or objective self. Of some cognitions, this past 
self makes a part ; but not of all. But the present self 
belono;s to all. 

The distinction between these two sorts of cognitions is 
important to bear in mind, because it contributes materially 
to generate the illusion of an Objective Absolute. Because 
many of my cognitions include no reference to a (past or 
objective) self, and are in this respect distinguishable from 
those which do include such reference — it is imamned that 
the first class are wholly divorced from self ; that they are 
complete and independent absolutes. It is forgotten that 
the present or subjective self is implicated alike in both the 
two classes. 



SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 345 

In explaining this abstruse point of psychological theory, 
the first great problem is, to find means of bringing the 
forgotten present or suhjective self into notice. It cannot be 
known by direct and immediate consciousness, in reference 
to any present sensation or cognition. It can only be known 
by inference from the sum total of our past mental states, 
and by appeal to the fact of cognition as the radical or 
primordial element from which psychology takes its start. 
Instead of pretending to explain this primordial fact by the 
hypothesis of an Absolute Object acting upon an Absolute 
Subject to generate cognition, we have to take the cognition 
itself as an indivisible act capable of being looked at from 
two sides — either from the side common to all cognitions, or 
from that which varies from time to time in each particular 
case. 

The second problem is, while rescuing the subjective self 
from oblivion, to bring it into notice as not isolated but 
always incorporated with some particular object, with which 
it is fused in one and the same mental act. Every mental 
act or condition — be it sensation, perception, conception, 
emotion, volition, belief, intuition, ratiocination — includes 
the subject determined by its object, and may be looked at 
from one or from the other point of view\ If I speak of an 
Object of perception, of belief, of intuition, of ratiocination 
— I myself am present, in the mental state which dictates 
the speech, as percipient, credent, intuent, ratiocinant : the 
Object is relative to me, in one or other of these capacities ; 
and I am relative to that as to other objects. The Noumena 
require a Nous to apprehend them, and reciprocally the 
Nous requires Noumena to enable it to come into act: so 
also the Percepta and Percipiens mutually imply each other, 
and are two modes of looking at the same real fact. 

The distinction between the Keal and the Ideal is doubt- 
less very important to be maintained : but it does not turn 
upon the distinction between Object and Subject. It turns 
on the distinction between Sentient Subject and Concipient 
or Cogitant Subject, or (which is equivalent) between 



346 PAPERS OX PHILOSOPHY. 

Objectum Sensum and Objectum Cogitatum or Conception — 
between the act of Sensation and the act of Ideation. Sub- 
ject and Object are each common to both : but in the one 
class, I am sentient subject, in the other class, cogitant 
subject: in the one class the object is an object of per- 
ception, in the other an object of conception or an Ens 
Eationis. I am myself the true and fundamental subject of 
all my propositions : every proposition announces by impli- 
cation — I feel, I think, J believe, and so and so. There are 
many propositions in Avhich this is not directly included in 
the formal enunciation : but it is not the less really under- 
stood in all, without exception. In explaining the nature of 
propositions, this ineffaceable subjective basis ought to be 
formally and emphatically laid down. In practice men lose 
sight of it, because of its universality : but these forgotten 
but constcint elements are the very matters which the 
analysing philosopher should take the most pains to bring 
clearly into view. 

[The foregoing was transmitted to Professor Terrier, who 
made to it the reply published in his Eemains, vol. 1. The 
interest of that reply will be greatly enhanced by its being 
read in connection with Mr. Grote's paper.] 

" The point at issue between Mr. G. and me is this : — He 
holds that the ])resent self is never the object, or any part 
of the object, of our consciousness. I venture to hold the 
^' opposite opinion, and have given expression to it in my 
" opening proposition, in which it is maintained that the self 
" and the not-self are always apprehended simiiltaneoiisly, 
'^ although I admit that the self is usually no prominent or 
" explicit portion of the cognition. 

" In Mr, G.'s paper there is a certain ambiguity (as I dare- 
" say there are plenty on my side of the question), something 
" at least about which I am in doubt, and which must be 
'' cleared up before any progress can be made in the discus- 
" sion ; in fact, before there can be either any disagreement 



66 



SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 347 

^' or any agreement between us. I shall endeavour, at the 
" outset, to explain what this ambiguity or inconsistency is. 

"In every case of cognition more is imjplied than is 
" expressly known. For instance, when I look at a tree, all 
" that I am expressly cognisant of is the tree. This at least 
^' is usually the whole — the whole that is explicit. But 
" much more is implied. I am implied, seeing is implied, a 
^' retina is implied, a hrain is implied. All these are impli- 
** cated in the process. They are present and instrumental, 
^^ but the tree alone is expressly known. So far, I think, 
" Mr. Gr. and I will agree ; so far there is no ambiguity. 

'' But a question here' arises. Are these implicated ele- 
'' ments not known at all, or are they only not known ex- 
^'fressly ? In other words, may not that which is not known 
" expressly or explicitly be nevertheless known — known 
'^implicitly? 

"This is an important question. In reference to the 
" present discussion it is all-important, and it must be an- 
" swered unambiguously. For myself, I answer the question 
'- in the affirmative. I argue for implicit, as well as for 
" explicit cognition. And I maintain that some of the ele- 
" ments above referred to, as implicated in my cognition of 
" the tree, are known implicitly, and that others of them are 
''not known at all. M' and 'seeing' are known implicitly 
" in and along with my explicit knowledge of the tree ; 
" ' retina ' and ' brain ' are not known at all. And the 
'^ ground of the distinction is this, that reflection enables me 
" to recover and render explicit ' me ' and ' seeing ' — a cir- 
"cumstance which to my mind proves that these Avere 
" already known implicitly, although overlooked at the time ; 
" whereas no power of reflection can reveal to me a retina or 
"brain as having been concerned in the operation. To dis- 
" cover these I must have recourse to renewed observation 
" and anatomy. 

" But what I am at a loss about is the answer which Mr. G. 
" gives to this important question. This is the article in 
"regard to which I venture to think that he is ambiguous. 



348 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. 

" From the general purport of the remarks in which he con- 
" troyerts my position, I would conclude that he is opposed 
^' to the doctrine of ' implicit cognitions. ' But there are 
" expressions in his note which seem to point to the opposite 
" conclusion. He says that the ego ^ is understood in all 
" propositions, ' understood, of course, by itself and to itself ; 
'' that is to say, known implicitly and in the present time. 
" And in his last sentence he says, ' In practice men lose 
" sight of it (the ego) because of its universality ; but these 
" forgotten but distinct elements are the very matters which 
*^the analysing philosopher should take the most pains to 
" bring clearly into view. ' On this I would remark that it is 
'^not possible for the analysing philosopher to briug clearly 
" into view any element of consciousness which was not 
" known obscurely beforehand. Eeflection is his only instru- 
" ment ; and reflection cannot originate knowledge : it can 
" only make us know clearly and explicitly what we already 
" know confusedly and implicitly. 

" The result is, that I am in doubt as to the ground occu- 
" pied by Mr. G. in reference to implicit cognitions. Does 
"he deny them altogether? Must all cognition be either 
'' express or null ? In that case, he will find it very difficult, 
" or rather impossible, to explain how a reflective aualysis 
'* can go to work upon its materials, these being, on this 
" supposition, the absolutely unknown. On the other hand, 
*^ does he admit implicit cognition ? In that case, I think 
^' that there cannot be any very great difference between us ; 
" and that, with a little explanatory coaxing, he might be 
" brought roimd to my side of the question : for if a man 
"admits any implicit cognitions, or, I should rather say, 
" implicit elements of cognition, he may surely accept the ego 
" as among the number. But until I know whether, and to 
" what extent, Mr. G. accepts or rejects the doctrine of im- 
'^ plied cognitions, I do not see how he and I can properly 
" join issue, either in the way of agreement or disagreement, 
^ ' So much in reference to the ambiguity of which I com- 
" plain. 



SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 349 

^' For the reason given I shall not go much into argument 
"on the point more particularly in dispute. Let me just 
"say that Mr. G.'s doctrine, that we have no cognisance of 
^' our present, but only of our past self, is, in my opinion, 
" untenable, for these among other reasons : — 

''First, I cannot have any cognisance of my past self 
" without distinguishing myself as past from myself as pre- 
'' sent. But I cannot make this distinction without being 
" cognisant of my present self. Therefore, in being cognisant 
" of my past self, I must always be cognisant (implicitly it 
" may be) of my present self. Secondly, would the words ' I 
'' am' have any meaning, except in reference to a self cog- 
" nised in the present ? Thirdly, it would not be possible for 
" a man to he cognisant of his past self unless he had heen 
'' cognisant of his present self. What a man remembers is, 
" that certain sensations were his, that certain events befell 
" him ; that is, he remembers both himself and those events, 
" and the connection between him and them. If he had not 
been cognisant of himself in the present (which is now 
past), he either would remember only the events, and their 
" having happened to nobody, at least not to him (which is 
" absurd), or he would not have remembered them at all, 
" which is the more probable alternative, But he does re- 
" member them ; and he remembers, moreover, that they 
" happened to him, which seems to me to prove that he was 
" cognisant (however inexplicitly) of himself at the time. 
" But I have exhausted my paper, and I daresay your 
" patience, so I shall say no more at present, except that I 
"cannot think that Mr. G.'s position is not blasted, or that 
" mine is shaken, by anything that has been as yet advanced. 
'' Perhaps he thinks that a contradiction is involved in sup- 
" posing that the cognoscens can be in the same instant the 
" cognition. But that is precisely the idea and definition of 
"the ego, that it is at once its own subject and its own 
"object-— not, however, without a contrasting element, the 
" non-ego." 



6i 
6i 



350 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. 

[To this Mr. Grote rejoined.] 

I have read with much interest the paper of Professor 
Ferrier. He has handled this abstruse subject with great 
acuteness, and in a manner which, if it does not bring about 
agreement between two dissentients, enables both of them 
to understand better both the grounds and the measure of 
their dissent. 

The point at issue between us is brought to view more 
distinctly in the concluding sentence of his letter than in 
the preceding parts. He there says — 

• " Perhaps he (G.) thinks, that a contradiction is involved 
in supposing that the cognoscens can be in the same instant 
the cognitum. But that is precisely the idea and definition 
of the Ego — that it is at once its own subject and its own 
object — not however without a contrasting element, the non- 
Egor 

The question between Mr. F. and myself, as I conceive 
it, is, whether this " idea and definition of the Ego " be a 
correct one : whether there be really any such duplication 
or double function of the Ego, in the same instant or in the 
same act of present cognition. In my judgment, such dupli- 
cation or double function belongs, not to present cognition, 
but to reflex cognition only. 

On two points, I think, we are both agreed. 

First, there is in every act of cognition an essential impli- 
cation of Cognoscens and Cognitum — Subject and Object. 

Secondly, there is in every act of reflex cognition a dupli- 
cation of the Ego. Here it is at once Cognoscens and Cog- 
nitum. The case which Mr. F. states, about " seeing the 
tree," illustrates this perfectly ; and I quite agree with the 
manner in which he states it. In reflection, I disimpUcate 
that which in the act itself had been implicated. My reflect- 
ing Ego is the cognoscens : the Ego of my previous act of 
vision is the cognitum. 

On these points Mr. F. and I concur : but our difference 
lies in the manner of conceiving and stating the elements 



SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 351 

really implicated in the original, present, act of cognition 
(or vision). He maintains that the duplication or double 
function of the Ego occurs in the original act of cognition 
as well as in the reflex act : and he argues that it could not 
occur in the reflex unless it had previously occurred in the 
original. I submit that this argument is not satisfactory. 
That which in the original cognition had been simply Egfo 
cognoscens, would present itself as Ego cognitus to the new 
Ego cognoscens acting in the work of reflection. It is by 
no means necessary to assume, that in the original act of 
cognition, the Ego must have been at once cognoscens and 
cognitus. In Mr. F.'s theory, the Ego is counted twice over 
in the original act of cognition — where, as I think, it really 
occurs only once : while no account is taken of the new Ego 
cognoscens which appears in the act of reflection. The inter- 
vention of this new Ego cognoscens makes an important 
difference between the act of reflection and the act of pre- 
sent cognition. It is an additional element, blending itself 
with the revived elements of the previous cognition, and 
generally with other cognitions brought into comparison 
with this latter. And it is moreover an essential condition, 
enabling us to disimplicate elements which had been essen- 
tially implicated in the act of cognition itself. 
' I will not go so far as to affirm " that a contradiction is 
involved in supposing that the cognoscens can be in the same 
instant the cognituniJ' But it appears to me, that this 
hypothesis assumes more in the act of cognition than really 
belongs to it. The implication, in that act, of the cognoscens 
with the cognitum, is indisputable : not so, when we come 
to assume the triple implicate — cognoscens, cognoscens cog- 
nitum, and cognitum. Here we count the cognoscens twice 
over : not upon any evidence of direct consciousness (which 
is inapplicable to the case), but as an inference from what 
occurs in the act of reflection. The grounds upon which 
Mr. F. rests this inference appear to me insufficient, and it 
is upon this point that I join issue with him. What occurs 
in the act of reflection would, in my judgment, occur equally, 



352 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. 

if we admit in the primary act of cognition nothing more 
than an implication of the cognoscens with some oognitum — . 
subject ivith object. I do not use the terms Ego and Non-Ego, 
because they appear to me less appropriate. The last is as 
much positive as the first, though it is variable, while the 
first is constant. 

If I am right, this implication of subject with object is the 
simplest and most universal statement of what is common 
to all acts of cognition : whether in its ruder form, as among 
children and animals — or in its more complicated form, as 
among reflecting and analysing students. We cannot abolish 
either of the two without dismissing mind altogether : though 
we may look at cognitions from either of the two points of 
view, leaving out for the time the consideration of the other. 
In such processes of abstraction, comparison, reflection, we 
disimplicate the two elements of those cognitions which 
we compare and reflect upon. But we do not even here 
disimplicate the ^process of cognition: for our reflecting or 
comparing Ego becomes itself implicated in the act of 
reflexion or comparison. 

With reference to the reasoning in Mr. F.'s fourth page 
(p. 349), I would say, that ih.eioresentselfi^ present as cognizing, 
not as cognized : and that the words lam, though they include 
the present self, include a great deal more besides. Mr. F. 
says : " Thirdly, it would not be possible for a man to be 
cognizant of his jpast self, unless he had been cognizant of 
his present self,'' I incline to believe that the reverse of 
the proposition is more accurate, and that we are cognizant 
of our present self only through inferences from our past 
self. I see the books in my study now before me — I hear 
the noise of carriages in the street — I meditate on Mr. F.'s 
paper now on my table — but all this while my present self 
never shews himself as a part of the scene, or as an object 
of cognition or consciousness. In fact, it seems to me that 
self is a complicated word, which requires many comparisons 
before its meaning can be understood, and which cannot 
be understood except as including more than the present 



SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 353 

moment. I cannot conceive my present self except as the 
continuance of an unbroken line from the past. I am con- 
scious of my present act of cognition : but that which is 
present to my consciousness is, simply the object cognized: 
by reflection on past acts, I know that the cognizing subject 
must be present and implicated— but I know it in no other 
way. 

On looking over again Mr. F.'s letter (Mr. Grote con- 
tinues), before sending off my reply, I perceive that I have 
dwelt rather too exclusively on the fourth page. I will 
therefore add a few words, answering more directly the 
question in page 2. 

I admit that there are implicit cognitions : that is, as I 
understand it, cognitions of which we have no conscious- 
ness distinct at the time or capable of being remembered 
afterwards — but which nevertheless may be proved, by evi- 
dence aliunde, to have been objects of consciousness and to 
have left their effects behind. You give in your first volume 
(' Senses and Intellect,' p. 390) an interesting example of 
this kind, in reference to the intellectual discrimination 
between different sensations of touch, such sensations being 
undistinguishable both emotionally and volitionally. 

But while I admit this as a fact of frequent occurrence in 
the human mind, and therefore as a legitimate explanation 
in various obscurities of mental philosophy, I must at the 
same time add, that the onus jprobandi lies upon him who 
advances the explanation. He must produce evidence to 
prove that these implicit cognitions have really been in the 
mind as cognitions. Now the evidence produced by Mr. F. 
does not appear to me sufficient to prove the point, in his 
particular case. 

Again, he remarks upon a phrase of mine in my first paper 
— " Gr. says that the Ego is understood in all propositions — 
understood (F. remarks) of course by itself and to itself — 
that is to say, known implicitly " (bottom of page 2). In 
regard to this, I would say, that I do not clearly remember 

2 A 



354 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. 

the phrases in my first paper, but I presume that I meant 
understood in the sense of the Latin word suhauditum, not 
intelledum: as the knowing element tacitly implied, and 
essentially as a condition, in all present knowledge, but not 
knowable itself except through reflex view upon past acts of 
knowledge. 

Pray read the above remarks, and forward them to Mr. F., 
if you think they deserve it. I am much obliged to him for 
the trouble he has taken in drawing up the paper of criticism 
on my former remarks. I hope he will accept the present 
communication as a mark both of gratitude and respect. 



[In the months of February and March, 1871, when the 
fatal malady was making progress, Mr. Grote read with 
avidity and with much admiration the work of M. Taine, 
' De rintelligence.' He still kept up undiminished his life- 
long interest in Logical and Psychological discussions, and 
could give forth his thoughts with clearness and vigour, as 
will be seen from the following observations, being the text 
of letters written on such parts of Mr. Taine's work as 
related to the fundamental notions and the axioms of science. 
These were the last rays of the setting sun.] 

Taine seeks to rehabilitate the Absolute, or an external 
self-existent, under the attenuated form of Motion reduced 
to its lowest terms of Order and Number, and divested of 
everything which distinguishes one case of Motion from 
another. His argument appears to me very inconclusive in 
these thirteen pages : for while he in several passages admits 
(to all appearance) the fundamental reference to ourselves 
and our own sensations — he in other passages professes to 
point out other characteristics which lie apart from this 
reference : the truth being, that these latter characteristics 
involve the same reference, just as much as the former, only 



ON M. TAINE ' DE L'lNTELLTGENCE.' 355 

that it lies behind, and requires rather more attention to 
see it : which attention Taine does not bestow. Thus {e,g) 
look at p. 54, where he professes to discriminate the cha- 
racteristics relative to us from those which are absolute and 
have no reference to us. For example, he says : — " Le moi 
est un reactif entre cent millions d'autres. — A ses notations, 
nous substituons d'autres notations equivalentes, et nous 
deflnissons les proprietes des corps, non plus par nos evene- 
mens^ mais par certains de leurs evenemens. Au lieu de 
notre sensation de temperature, nous prenons pour indice 
Televation ou I'abaissement de I'alcohol dans le ther- 
mometre." Taine here overlooks the fact that the rise or 
fall of alcohol in the thermometre is only another variety of 
our sensations : an application of our sense of vision appealed 
to in place of our sense of temperature, and certifying 
comparison of temperature inferentially instead of directly. 
The case is the same with the other example cited by Taine 
— the rise or fall in one of the scales of a balance, informing 
us of comparative weights, much better than could be done 
by our own muscular sensations when we support the two 
bodies with our hands. Here again appeal is made to 
another variety of our sensations : what Taine says—" nous 
deflnissons les proprietes des corps, non plus par nos evene- 
mens, mais par leurs evenemens," — is not true. We do not, 
and cannot, leave out nos evenemens. 

It appears as if Taine thought, that whenever we had 
recourse to an indirect and inferential measure respecting 
the properties of a body, we thereby departed from the 
principle of E-elativity. In this I think he is quite mis- 
taken: and moreover inconsistent with himself. For we 
read, p. 57, the following passage — '* Entre les diverses 
classes d'evenemens par lesquels on peut definir les choses, 
I'homme en choisit une, y ramene la plupart des autres, 
suppose qu'il pourra un jour y ramener le rcste. Mais, si 
Ton analyse celui qu'il a choisi, on decouvre que tons les 
elemens originels et constitutifs de sa definition, comme de 
la definition de tous les autres, ne sont jamais que des 



356 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. 

sensations, ou des extraits plus ou moins elabores de sensa- 
tions." Surely it is impossible to declare universal Belativity 
— the universal implication of us the sentients, and of our 
sensations, in every definition — in plainer language than this. 

Again, I cannot but question the manner in which Taine 
conceives and defines Motion (p. 55) — '^ une serie de sensa- 
tions successives interposees entre les momens de depart et 
d'arrivee — une serie d'etats successifs interposes entre les 
momens de depart et d'arrivee." Surely Motion is con- 
tinuous between departure and arrival : there is no series or 
succession of states in Motion. There is a series or order in 
the lolaces through which the Motum passes — but in the fact 
of Motion itself, there is no series or succession. Motion is 
essentially continuous, from departure to stoppage : it is the 
very type of continuity : in order that you may have suc- 
cession of states, or of sensations, you must have stoppage 
and recommencement of motion. I consider it a contradictio 
in adjecio when Taine (p. 63) talks of ^* la serie continue des 
evenemens successifs qui constituent le mouvement d'une 
pierre transportee par notre main — cette serie continue de 
sensations museulaires successives qui constituent pour nous 
le mouvement de notre main." When I affirm continuity, 
I virtually deny succession — and vice versa. We are all 
moving along with the Earth in its two uniform motions of 
rotation and translation : but we have no consciousness of 
successive sensations constituting this motion. The terms 
senes and succession belong, not to the motion itself, but to 
the places through which the Motum passes, or to the 
collateral sensations which attach to those places respec- 
tively : as when we move from light to dark, from cold to 
hot, &c. Number and Order, to which Taine professes to 
reduce the fact of Motion when pared down by abstraction, 
do not (in my opinion) belong to Motion at all, unless you 
include along with it certain concomitant sensations which 
are not of the essence of Motion, and which may be absent 
as well as present. , 

In regard to Taine's reasoning, from p. 57 to p. 65, where 



ON M. TAINE 'DE L'lNTELLIGENCE.' 357 

lie attempts to erect an Absolute on the back of Mill's 
theory and yours, I consider it altogether fallacious. I 
admit indeed that it holds good as an argumentum ad 
hominem. If I granted the absolute and independent exist- 
ence of minds other than my own, I should be prepared also 
to grant the absolute and independent existence of rocks 
and trees. Indeed I think the reasons for granting it in the 
latter case are stronger than those applying to the former. 
For I have no direct knowledge or commerce with another 
man's mind, but only with his body : before I can infer the 
absolute existence of his mind, I must begin by recognizing 
the absolute existence of his body : and when once I have 
done that, I cannot refuse absolute existence to rocks and 
trees. 

Taine takes for granted this recognition of absolute exist- 
ence of other minds, by all the followers of Berkeley. This 
is really his one and only argument, which he puts forward 
with easy confidence — " legitimement (pp. 58, 59) sur 
preuves valables," p. 62. He certainly is right in supposing 
that Berkeley recognises this doctrine, and I think (without 
being quite sure) that John Mill recognises it : but I dissent 
from it entirely. Indeed I think that the common, un- 
philosophical, opinion of the absolute existence of the 
material world generally, is more consistent and tenable than 
the opinion which restricts absolute existence to minds 
only, our own and all others besides. No one has done more 
than Taine to illustrate the frequent illusions of the mind 
in assuming, as external and independent, what is merely 
subjective. But in this particular case, he cannot bear to 
admit " une illusion de I'esprit humain " (p. 58), which he 
has shown to be omnipotent in so many other cases. Yet 
many of his sentences appear to be written as if he held the 
same opinion as we do. For example (p. 68) — " II essaye 
de considerer a part et en soi ce quelque chose independant 
et permanent qu'il n'a isole que par un ovhli, II cree ainsi 
la substance vide : sur cette entite la metaphysique tra- 
vaille et batit ainsi ses chateaux de cartes: pour les faire 

2 B 



358 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. 

tomber, ce n'est pas trop de I'analyse la plus rigoureuse.'* 
This sentence expresses my opinion, and I think very well : 
the ovhli of which he speaks, is intended by him to express 
only the objective attributes from which la substance vide is 
detached : but I should extend the meaning so as to include 
also the judging and believing Subject ; which, though omni- 
present and inseparable, is just as much forgotten and put 
out of sight as if it had no existence. 

Taine's highly abstract attenuation of Motion is a fetch of 
Realism. It is on a par with la substance vide in the passage 
last cited. How few philosophers are there who carry out 
consistently the doctrine Avhich Aristotle took so much pains 
to inculcate — that reality is to be sought in the concrete and 
particular, not in the abstract and universal ! 

In the attempt made by Taine to bring the geometrical 
and arithmetical Axioms under the head of Analytic Pro- 
positions instead of Synthetic, he reasons in direct opposition 
to John Mill's argument in the second chapter of his second 
book: Taine adopts what Mill there calls " the ultra-Nomin- 
alism of Hobbes and Condillac " (p. 199) : Taine considers 
" that the process of arriving at new truths by reasoning 
consists in the mere substitution of one set of arbitrary signs 
for another " and a substitution, in fact, is Taine's favourite 
phrase for the function of general words in carrying on rea- 
sonino's. 

I do not admit the justice of Taine's reasoning (p. 341) 
upon the Maxim of Contradiction : he forgets that many 
philosophers in the time of Aristotle, together with Hegel 
and others in recent vears, disallowed and denied this 
maxim : and that they would have equally disallowed Taine's 
proof of it : they would not have admitted his assertion that 
present meant not absent — and that absent meant not present. 
You can only prove the maxim by uncontradicted repetition 
of appeals to particular facts of sense ; and if your opponent 
will not admit these facts of sense, you cannot prove it at 
all. The aggregate effect on the memory and belief of these 
multiplied repetitions constitutes what Taine calls (p. 342) 



ON M., TAINE ' DE L'lNTELLIGENCE.' 859 

" Tefficacite des idees latentes " : a phrase not psychologically 
correct, nor at all proper for a work on reasoned truth, seeing 
that he puts the grounds of belief in axiomatic truths on 
a level with emotional fancies and prejudices. That these 
idees latentes (p. 342-343) do as a matter of fact very often 
determine our belief, he tells us very truly : but the charac- 
teristic feature of reasoned truth is that those secret grounds 
of belief shall be brouo'ht out into distinct consciousness and 
critically appreciated : seeing that in their latent state, they 
are available alike for support either of true or false belief, 
and carry no authority. 

' In p. 344, Taine says (in proceeding to discuss the Axiom 
that ' the sums of equals are equal ' and the differences of 
equals also equal) — " Certainement, nous pouvons former 
ces deux propositions par I'induction ordinaire : et tres 
probablement, c'est de cette maniere qu'elles s'etablissent 
d'abord dans notre esprit.— Toutes les fois que j ai pratique 
dans des conditions semblables des operations semblables, 
j'ai verifie que Tissue etait semblable " (344, bottom). — 
There cannot be a clearer admission that these Axioms both 
may be and are of inductive origin. But in the next page, 
he tells us that they may also be formed ivithout induction 
(346-347). The very supposition that there are truths 
proveable by Induction, (including, as Taine justly says 
verification) but which are also proveable without Induction 
— appears to me a strange one, and most unnecessary. His 
attempt to shew it is by resolving Equality into Sameness, 
and Inequality into Difference : and by saying that two lines 
which are capable of exactly coinciding " ne font plus qu'une 
seule et memo ligne (350) — sent les memes — " while, if not 
so capable, they are different. It appears to me that this 
is a new definition of equality, which goes far to abolish it 
as a real attribute, and which is at the same time incorrect. 
Two lines capable of coinciding are equal : this is a concep- 
tion essentially different from, and opposed to, the concep- 
tion of two lines merged and confounded into one and the 
same line : the first of the two conceptions involves duality 



360 PAPERS o:n philosophy. 

of the objects compared, the second abolishes it. You may 
say that twelve is tJie same as twelve, or as duodeeim, douze, 
zwolf, &c. : here is one and the same thing either described 
twice over by different names, or the same name repeated 
both in subject and predicate — a mere tautology. But you 
cannot with propriety say — twelve is equal to twelve, duo- 
deeim : here are no two objects to compare : the proposition 
twelve is equal to itself — is either unmeaning, or metaphorical. 
In framing any equation of which twelve forms one side, you 
must find some different number to place on the other side : 

12 = ^ = ^=4x3 = 6x2=\/ 144— and so forth. 

Here you predicate of 12, that it is equal to the result of a 
certain operation performed upon some other number : that 
it is equal to a function of that other number, arising in a 
certain way. Here are always two different real terms com- 
pared ; and the number as well as variety of such compari- 
sons might be injBnitely multiplied. 

Taine says (p. 353) — "Sous le mot Sffal, reside le mot 
me7ne : voila le mot essentiel : telle est Tidee latente incluse 
dans I'idee d'egalite. Degagee et suivie a travers plusieurs 
propositions intermddiaires, elle ramene Taxiome a une pro- 
position analytique. Par elle nous relions Tattribut au 
sujet : nous la voyons presente dans les deux : mais avant de 
I'y voir, nous Ty pressentions : elle y etait et temoignait de 
sa presence par la contrainte qu'elle exer^ait sur notre affir- 
mation : quoique non demelee, elle faisait son office. — Nous 
devinions avec certitude, mais sans pouvoir preciser les 
choses, que dans les deux donnees et dans les deux operations, 
il y avait du meme: I'analyse n'a fait qu'isoler ce meme, et 
nous montrer a I'etat distinct la vertu qu'il y avait en nous a 
I'etat latent." 

This paragraph seems to me incorrect : Equality seems to 
me to exclude sameness, instead of implying it : moreover we 
see here what an arbitrary proceeding it is to invoke these 
idees latentes, and to ascribe to their influence " la contrainte 
exercee sur notre affirmation.^^ 



ON M. TAINE ' DE ^INTELLIGENCE.' 361 

It is here formally announced that these axioms are no- 
thing more than analytical propositions. 

Taine ought to have tried his hand upon the Axiom — 
"Things which are equal to the same are equal to one 
another " — ^before he meddled with the more advanced pro- 
position — The sums of equals are equal. 

Suppose that a person puts before you two propositions 
thus framed : — 

1. If there be two magnitudes A and B, both of them 
equal to a third magnitude 0, one of those two magnitudes 
will be equal to the other. 

2. If there be two magnitudes A and B, both of them 
greater than a third magnitude C, one of those two magni- 
tudes will be greater than the other. 

On hearing these two propositions for the first time, who 
can tell that the first is true, and the second not true, except 
by trying both one and the other in application to a string 
of particular cases ? What idees latentes are there in each, 
to enable him to make this distinction? Taine's appeal 
(p. 347), that we should shut our eyes and reflect upon the 
meaning of the terms will certainly not enable us to do this, 
unless we employ the interval of closed eyes in imagining a 
variety of triplets conforming to Propositions 1 and 2, and, 
examining mentally what the results would be in each case. 
Proposition 1, though true, is not an analytic Proposition, 
but synthetic. Its contradictory includes no contradiction 
in terms. Proposition 2 is alike synthetic, and can only be 
shewn to be false generally, by the production of some par- 
ticular case in which observation attests it as false. 

Taine's exposition and criticism of the definition o{ parallels 
(355 — 363) are also unsatisfactory to me : there is the same 
gratuitous substitution of same distance between the parallels 
of equal distance. 

Also about straight line, (356) I agree with what he says 
(355) about Legendre's definition (shortest distance between 
two points). His own exposition however (356) implies the 
very same antithesis (" en reniarquant la ligne que trace le 



362 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. 

premier point lorsqu'il se meut vers le second et vers le 
second seulement, par opioosUion a la ligne qu'il trace lorsqu'- 
ayant de se moiivoir vers le second, il se meut soit vers un 
autre, &c."). 

In this exposition, tha idea of direction is assumed as 
already acquired and familiar. In fact, it is the idee laiente 
which Taine is fond of assuming arbitrarily in other cases, 
but which really exists in our minds in this case as the true 
constituent of the straight line. Taine cannot resolye direc- 
Hon into anything more simple and fundamental : but he 
ought to haye brought it out into clearer light by yaried 
exposition and illustration. Sameness (of direction) is here 
in its right place : while employed as an exponent of equality, 
it is quite out of place and misleading. Direction and 
Distance are both of them distinct aspects of the fact of 
motion ; but both of them are fundamental and universal ; 
neither of them can be resolyed into the other. Legendre's 
definition of the straight line (above noticed) attempts to 
resolve direction into distance ; and is for that reason inad- 
missible as a definition, though true as an affirmation. One 
and the same dnection is known by immediate consciousness, 
farther illustrated by contrast with a difi^erent immediate 
consciousness — varijing direction — from and tcncards. All 
that can be done towards defining a straight line is, to state 
and illustrate this consciousness and contrast in the most 
perspicuous manner. 

As to Taine's demonstration (p. 371 seq.) that several or 
all of the principles of mechanics are not merely truths of 
experience or inductiyely established, but also analytical pro- 
loositions, I think it quite unsatisfactory : indeed I consider it 
as among the worst parts of his book. The demonstration 
is founded upon the same abusive appeal to "Za meme^' 
(p. 373) which he had reasoned upon before. It is no better 
than the presumption of Aristotle, that the celestial bodies 
moved in perfect circles, because it was their nature so to 
move. To say that because a moving body has moved two 
inches in the same direction, we are entitled to presume. 



ON M. TATNE * DE INTELLIGENCE.' 363 

and even required to believe, that it will continue to move 
onward in the same uniform direction and velocity, unless 
some disturbing cause intervene — to say that this is an axiom 
of which we can neither conceive nor believe the contrary 
(p. 386), when he had before said (p. 370) that Aristotle and 
the philosophers prior to Galileo all did believe the contrary 
— seems to me an exaggeration of bold and unwarranted 
assertion. It is indeed well calculated ^'to increase in an 
infinite measure the powers of our minds " (la portee de notre 
esprit s'accroit a I'infini — p. 392), and to give us knowledge 
not relative, but absolute, without doubts or conditions {'^ ne 
souffrent ni doutes, ni limites, ni conditions, ni restrictions " 
— p. 393). Now that, after truths have been for a long time 
unknown or disallowed, and only built up in the face of able 
opponents by laborious induction, a philosopher should come 
forward and say that the induction was altogether super- 
fluous, and that the conclusion was really contained in, and 
inseparable from, the premisses — appear to me assertions no 
less incredible than anything which we read in Aristotle ' De 
Coelo; 

In all your remarks about the Postulate of the Uniformity 
of Nature I perfectly concur. But we must remember that 
Aristotle and the Peripatetics not only did not allow this Pos- 
tulate, but afl&rmed another Postulate distinctly contradicting 
it, viz. : That there were some sequences essentially regular, 
others essentially irregular and unpredictable. The Postulate 
of Uniform Nature has been ascertained and verified by a large 
and ever increasing sweep of Induction, and is nov^ well 
entitled to overbear the counter-presumption which Aristotle 
in his day admitted as dividing with it the empire of phe- 
nomena. But it derives its certainty and authority entirely 
from Induction : and the last Chapter of Taine's book ap- 
pears to me extremely misleading, inasmuch as it is a hazy 
maze of words tending to make you believe that there is 
a distinct authority co-operating with and even superior to 
Induction — viz. : " la raison explicative, la soudure,'' between 
the separate links of the Inductive process. This extra- 



364 PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHY. 

physical authority is alleged by Taine to do what Induction 
cannot do: that is, it gives us knowledge absolute and 
unconditional, which we can never obtain by Induction. 
Taine cites (with praise) Mill's Chapter on the Explanation 
of Laws of Nature : but he either misunderstands, or delibe- 
rately departs from, the main doctrines of that valuable 
Chapter : which presents in the clearest manner the true 
relation between the more comprehensive and the less 
comprehensive theorems in science. Taine speaks as if he 
thought that whenever we study one particular property of 
objects apart from the rest, we desert the path of Induction, 
and enable ourselves to discover and handle extra-physical 
entities such as le meme, la soudure, &c., thus putting ourselves 
on a platform above the inductive process. 

This last chapter of Taine appears to me a surrender of 
Mill' s Logic to the a priori of Leibnitz. It really contains 
some things which surprise me. " Nos yeux ne peuvent 
percevoir I'etendue que comme coloree : de meme, notre 
intelligence ne pent concevoir des faits que comme expli- 
cables. II n'y a de concevable pour nous que ce qui est 
explicable; comme il n'y a de visible pour nous que ce 
qui est coloree" (p. 481). He forgets that Aristotle and 
the Peripatetics distinctly held the contrary, and treated 
this position as itself incredible. 

The last page of Taine's book (491, 492) I do not clearly 
understand, but it seems to invest a priori procedure with a 
degree of power which enables it to dispense with experience 
altogether, and to determine beforehand, among the entire 
catalogue of possible existences, which of them (or how many 
among them) admit of becoming real. Taine then suggests 
that the enterprise of Hegel should be re-attempted with 
greater precautions. I can hardly think that he has studied 
Mill's Logic with any hear^ and serious grasp of its spirit 
and contents. -^- 



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